Part 29 Part 1 Part 2 Part 3 Part 4 Part 5 Part 6 Part 7 Part 8 Part 9 Part 10 Part 11 Part 12 Part 13 Part 14 Part 15 Part 16 Part 17 Part 18 Part 19 Part 20 Part 21 Part 22 Part 23 Part 24 Part 25 Part 26 Part 27 Part 28 Part 30 Ao3
3240 words
In hindsight, he should have remembered the vents.
Thinking about it now, as blood pulses from where the pain comes most, he really should've remembered the vents.
One above where his bed had been.
“Jesus Christ.” Eddie trails off, unable to help the flare of excitement he gets from seeing his sweetheart, his fingers already itching to play her. “It’s like… she was destined for an alternate dimension.”
Dustin makes an agreeing sound behind him, watching with wide awe-filled eyes as Eddie slowly walks over to the guitar, the pads of his fingers dancing along the cold smoothness of her body.
“What do you say, Henderson?” Eddie lifts her from her stand, a smile pulling at his lips. He doesn’t feel as scared now that he has his weapon. “Are you ready for the most metal concert in the history of the world?”
The smile Dustin gives him is blinding and for a second Eddie wonders if he looks as much of a bard as he feels. “Is that a rhetorical question?”
Eddie slings the strap over his head, ready to jump straight into the adrenaline that courses through him. “Let’s do it.”
One in the hallway.
Eddie and Dustin bicker as they lug the equipment through the trailer, Eddie unable to fight away the need to protect his sweetheart’s friends as Dustin nearly drops the speaker several times and unable to admit he’s carrying it wrong.
It’s a nightmare getting it onto the roof.
Another in the kitchen.
Eddie has the extension cord caught between his teeth as he begins to climb the rope, hoping with everything in him that the electricity from the normal world will transfer into the Upside Down when it’s time.
After falling back into the hellhole, mouth now cordless and their preparations complete, he notices Dustin looking at the polaroid on the fridge. Eddie falters, can’t help it really, as he stands there watching Dustin look. Dustin’s face is soft, but sad- and when he turns to glance at Eddie, he looks away immediately. He almost looks… ashamed.
And one resting innocently by the only door out.
They’re silent as they wait.
Eddie sits there, fidgeting silently with the strings on his sweetheart as Dustin paces over the metal next to him. It’s not the first time Eddie’s been on his trailer’s roof, but it is the first time he’s felt so scared being so. He can’t help but wish for another moment they never got- one with him and Dustin and his guitar. He imagines that the kid probably would have picked up on the chords pretty quickly, even if it really isn’t his thing. He’d have taught him Dio, Metallica, Ozzy. He can’t help but think that Dustin would have loved Ozzy…
“She’s in. Move on to phase three.”
Dustin looks at Eddie, nodding one firm shake of his head as he answers Robin.
The spike of adrenaline dizzies him, a ring in his ears as he remembers why he’s here, why he’s doing this. Chrissy had died because of this son-of-a bitch. She died because he dangled the promise of it over her head. Maybe that’s why she came to Eddie. Maybe that’s why she wanted it all to be over in the first place. Maybe- in another world, another time- Eddie would have noticed the signs.
Maybe, they could even have been friends.
Dustin switches on the speakers, the hum of them mixing with the dulling of his panic. It replaces the ringing in his ears in seconds.
Eddie brings his pic to his lips, kissing it once as determination chases away his fear.
But no maybe can bring her back to life, and the weapon in his hands is the only revenge he can give for her and all of their failed what if’s.
For the first time, he feels like a player and not an NPC.
“Chrissy.” He grins, raising his arm over his head, the lighting crackling in the sky. “This is for you.”
The sound of his first wild strum echoes into the dark air- loud, and angry, and everything they had planned it to be.
His fingers run along the strings, a battle of their own as he challenges the master of puppets in this land with one from his own to rival. Metallica screams into the dark air around him, and he can’t help the manic glee that comes rushes over him as he whoops, banging his head along with the cords as the bats begin to soar their way. He hears their snarls and imagines that it’s Hetfield singing along with him, two and two together for the most metal concert in history.
The vent under his foot creaks unheard as he shifts his weight.
His sweetheart all he can hear.
It isn’t before long, only half way through the song that Dustin begins screaming at him. “We got to lock down in T-minus thirty seconds!”
Eddie can only grin in response, closing his eyes along with the riff that took him days to learn. His heart beats wildly in his chest as those flying monsters catapult near, but not with fear.
“T-minus twenty!”
No. Not with fear.
Red lightning crackles in the sky.
“Ten!”
He laughs as the riff comes to a close, banging his head along with his heart’s wild thrums. He's never felt so alive.
“One!”
He opens his eyes, I wild smile playing on his lips.
It falls as soon as he sees just how close the bats are.
“Move!” He chokes on his yell, dropping his sweetheart so he can grab at Dustin. He shoves the kid to where he knows Wayne’s truck will catch them, praying to every D&D god he can think of that neither of them will somehow develop two left feet and manage to break open a skull as they leap down onto it. “Move- move!”
The second their feet touch the ground it’s Dustin who drags Eddie inside, the two of them slamming the door shut behind them as the bats begin to thump into the side of the trailer.
Eddie really hopes the cinder blocks hold up.
It takes all of three seconds for the ringing of adrenaline in his ears to calm down enough for him to realize Dustin is laughing. Eddie can’t help but smile back as Dustin catches his breath through each giggle, beginning to bounce where he stands. “Most- metal- ever!”
Eddie caves into the excitement, grabbing Dustin as the two of them hoot and holler like a couple of idiots.
They fucking did it.
Or- well, only in part.
Eddie knew something was wrong the second the bats went quiet. Him and Dustin back to back as they walked in a slow circle around each other, the slams against the sides of the trailer having refused to let up. It had been several long minutes of the two of them suppressing flinches as the trailer shook, several long minutes of a fear set only in the bats staying distracted just long enough.
Just long enough for Steve and the others to kill Vecna.
But now the bats are quiet.
And Eddie knows it hasn’t been nearly long enough for that.
He jerks his eyes around the walls of the trailer, shield and spear fisted in white knuckled palms as Dustin yells out taunts behind him. “Hey, dipshits!”
Eddie can feel his breath catch, the only reaction anyone- anything had given Dustin’s outburst.
“Give up that easy, huh?”
Eddie hisses out a shush at the kid, ignoring Dustin’s immediate instinct to argue. But before either of them can get a word out a loud and large bang rattles through the air above them. Their heads hit each other in their shared effort to look up, scrambling as they realize… “They're on the roof.”
Slowly, they follow the noise as it clambers over them- eyes locked on the vines that lead all the way to-
Dustin begins to ask something- something Eddie can’t hear past the screaming of his own heart in his ears- when the vent cover is ripped away by tiny deadly claws. The two of them scream as one as they attack the small bat, spears doing almost nothing to the monster as it screeches back at them.
Eddie won’t realize until later that the bat wasn’t screeching at them. But to the others.
A hivemind, they called it once.
He doesn't realize that now because for some reason, this bat won’t die.
Eddie falls back, trying hard not to flinch at Dustin’s fearful pleas. Have a little faith- Jesus, kid. He grabs the first chair he could find, the one he loved most as a kid because it put him and Ozzy on a closer height, and drops it under the vent. The nail shield goes surprisingly easy into the ceiling as he fists it up into it, a relieved hysterical laugh falling from his lips as it stays.
“Holy shit.” He hears Dustin mutter behind him. He turns, watching as Dustin’s hand falls from where he was expecting a high-five as his eyes go wide. “Please tell me that was the only vent.”
“Oh shit.” Eddie hisses, leaping from the chair and sprinting down the hallway to his bedroom- just in time to see a swarm erupt from the one above his bed. He shoves Dustin behind him, the two of them screaming aimless curses as they slam the door shut, flinching away from it as the wood immediately begins to shred from their claws.
Eddie grabs the shield Dustin dropped as they pass it.
“That’s not gonna’ hold!” Dustin screams, his back hitting the rope.
The rope!
“Let’s go!” Eddie screams, happy that Dustin immediately understood him as he is now hoisting himself up into a safer world. “Come on- quickly!”
The second he sees Dustin land on the other side he jumps onto the rope himself, swinging slightly as he begins to climb.
It hasn’t been enough time. His mind realizes, freezing him cold as Dustin yells at him from above. They’ll die if he leaves.
“Eddie- Eddie. You’re so close, let's go!”
Eddie lets go of the rope.
“Eddie!”
Steve will die if he leaves.
He does it without thinking- his plan, that is- the spear slicing clean through the sheets. Above him he can hear Dustin screaming at him, pleading with him. Begging him.
He ignores him as he flips away the mattress, grunting at the action over the boy’s cries.
“Stop- stop!”
He grabs the spear again; he grabs the shield.
“Eddie, what are you doing?”
He glances up, a small smile tugging at his lips. “I’m buying more time.”
“No!” Dustin’s scream fades as Eddie runs from the gate, his cries following him as the door to his bedroom rips open from the bat’s claws just as Eddie rips open the door to the only exit. He’s not really thinking- just acting. Hoping that somehow he’ll make it out of this alive so he has the chance to apologize.
Even if he won’t mean it.
Dustin’s safe.
Steve is about to be.
He grabs the bike he borrowed from Nancy off the ground, sprinting next to it as the bats all screech at each other- their sights narrowed in. He hears one snap at the air next to his ear just as he finally hops on, using the momentum and the hill’s decline to help propel himself forward. Strangely, it feels just as playing his sweetheart did.
Like he's a true hero.
That is- until the exhaustion begins to set in.
“Come and get me, you sons of bitches!” He yells out, huffing around the effort to do so. Come on. Come on!
Just a little longer.
Something- a bat presumably- slams into his side and he can do nothing but let out a small scream as he’s flung to the side off the bike. He grits his teeth at the pain of the pavement and rocks beneath him as he tumbles over it, his hands scraped raw as he forces himself to stand up.
Just in time, too. He breaks off into a run the second he’s sure he has just one foot under him, screaming as he goes. He hasn’t even made it out of the trailer park yet. He just- he just runs.
He runs.
“I didn’t know what to do- so- so I just ran away.”
Eddie falters, forcibly coming to a stop as his hands tremble beside him. The bats seem to be waiting for him as he turns around, flying overhead and all around as he fists the spear, the shield.
He holds them high.
“Come and get me!” He screams out, as loud as he can.
And come they do.
The first bite comes right at where his shirt and jacket had ridden up from his fall- his raised arm blocking the bats lifting even more so. He instinctively cries out, jerking away from the pain. He goes to slash at the bat- unsure if it’s even the right one just for another to take its place. This time going for his shoulder.
He brings the shield down, narrowly missing his own flesh with the spikes. But the second one leaves, another appears until- oh.
He’s in the middle of the swarm.
It happens between blinks- the bats throwing their angry hungry mouths at him and him struggling to fight back. It happens altogether far too quickly. One second the pain is sudden and sharp, the next deep and cruel. Crying out as one latches onto the back of his knee, he stumbles, the pain forcing him forward into the circle’s wall. A tail around his throat pulling him down.
He screams, guttural and loud, as they all attack at once.
The armor they made does nothing to prevent the bat’s mouths from digging through it and into his flesh. He feels it, each time his skin gives way and the blood jerks out from him, as he writhes on the pavement not even a hundred feet away from the only place he has ever been able to call home. He tries to get away, but each attempt only brings more of that agony. Each stretch opens up new parts of skin for the monsters to feast upon.
His screaming stops the second one goes for his throat, teeth swallowing up his Adam’s apple.
He chokes around the blood that bubbles up inside him, hot tears mixing with the red on his face as he waits to die.
He’d be stupid to think otherwise.
At least now, he won’t have to give an apology he wouldn’t mean. At least now he won’t die a coward.
“Don’t try and be a hero.”
He hopes he gave them enough time. He hopes Vecna dies a painful death, more painful than this at the least. He isn’t sure if that’s possible- his vision swarming with either blood or pain, mouth tasting of bile- but he hopes it is.
Eddie barely notices the moment the bats all fall away.
He doesn’t, that is, until he hears sobbing next to him. “-ie, oh god, Eddie!”
He blinks, choking around his own blood as he tries to clear it away from his eyes just enough to see. He feels it as Dustin lifts him into his arms, feels the shake of them beneath his head as Dustin wails. “That-” Eddie coughs, the words bubbled through the liquid. “That bad, huh?”
“No- nonono- you’re-” Dustin trembles, heavy tears falling down his cheeks. Eddie wonders how much the kid saw. “You’re gonna’ be fine- we’re- we’re going to get you to a hospital- we’re-”
A familiar howl in the distance. Eddie assumes it’s a near death hallucination, maybe Ozzy’s waiting for him on the other side…
A small smile blooms over his bloodied lips.
“He’s- he’s almost here- he- you’re going to be okay- you’re-”
“I didn't run away this time.” Eddie whispers, Dustin’s sobs probably covering up the sound. It doesn’t matter; the words aren't really for anyone to hear. “I didn’t run away.”
Eddie’s sight begins to glaze over without him realizing, the only reason he does is because of Dustin’s now frantic begging.
“Steve! Please!”
Silly sheep. Eddie thinks. I’m not Steve.
“Dustin- oh fuck.” A familiar voice, a very pretty voice, cuts through Eddie’s pain muddled, dying thoughts. Even if the voice comes out broken. “Eddie-”
“Steve, please- you- you have to save him.” Eddie can feel Dustin’s grip on him tighten, and he can’t help but wheeze slightly as he feels blood gush out of him.
He really should have remembered those vents…
He grunts as he’s shifted again, having zoned out of the conversation due to the pain. His cheek collides with something warm, and he closes his eyes, sighing against it. The warmth is trembling however as it holds him, the same way Dustin had when he cried.
“Eds-” The sad voice says, still so warm despite the cold air around them. “You promised-”
“Will this work?” Dustin’s voice cuts through and Eddie can barely manage to hear the sound of his knees hitting the ground next to them. He barely manages to hear the warmth give a sound of agreement before he feels his eyes close. Before the darkness that has been teasing at the edges of his vision finally breaks through.
.
.
.
He chokes around his own throat at the pain exploding in his chest, warm hands pressed over his heart as the screaming around him filters through blood filled ears.
He can’t help but let out a weak groan as he’s shifted, something soft now pressed against his cheek- the same warmth as before lulling him like an embrace as the mix of blood and vanilla washes through his nose. He can feel something being tied around him, but the pain and the warmth manage to steal him away from his understanding once more.
This time when he passes out, he doesn’t get a broken rib in response.
.
.
.
Cold wind whips over him.
The soft below feels like fur.
.
.
.
“-elp! Please! Somebody-” He’s in those warm arms again, his face pressed against the neck of the person holding him. “We were attacked-”
He’s shifted again, but he’s unable to protest- not even able to do more than wince at the pain of it.
He’s just so tired…
.
.
.
A man stares down at him as he’s rushed through the tunnel he’s stuck in. Bright lights swoop overhead, dizzying him even more so than he already is. It takes a second for him to piece the image together and a small smile blooms over his lips as he blinks up at him.
Perfect brown eyes look into his own and honey-brown hair matted with blood falls in a halo around Ozzy’s pretty face.
.
.
.
There’s the sound of screaming again. It’s beginning to get a bit annoying now, Eddie thinks.
.
.
.
His body jolts with the electricity that courses through him.
.
.
.
Beep.
Eddie inhales.
Beep.
He exhales.
Beep.
Eyes open slowly, crust pulling at his eyelashes.
Beep.
He blinks, vision swimming slightly before clearing all at once.
Beep.
Eddie Munson stares up at the hospital ceiling, altogether confused, and altogether not dead. His hand twitches over the mattress just once- just to be sure.
