[ No, he doesnāt look so good, nor does he smell especially great. If they were having a better time of things lately, Eddie might insist the kid take a shower before they even continue this conversationāspare my nose hairs the painābut it barely registers to him right now. He knows what Mike is trying to get at, and it hits him like a ton of bricks right in the stomach. ]
Shit.
[ He falls silent and slumps back against the nearest wall. His own death is one thing, but Mike Wheeler is a kid, and kids at least deserve the chance to be kids before death comes knocking at their door. He shakes his head in disbelief, wondering why no one did something. Why was no one there to step in? Where the hell were Steve and Nancy and Robin? Any adult? ]
[ Eddie's grief is a palpable thing in the air, heavy like steam. Mike wipes his face, as though he could keep from breathing it in; his hand still comes away gritty. ]
I- [ He shakes his head, eyes stuttering around the room like he'll find the rest of the words somewhere on the film canisters. ] There was a demogorgon. I didn't feel it yet, but-
[ But he knows. He's smart; he can connect two obvious dots. Vicious jaw gaping right above him. Dozens of unmoving shapes on the blood-slick streets around him. It's a simple equation, really. ]
I've seen it. I've- I've watched them kill people, and it takes seconds.
[ Less than seconds. A heartbeat, really, and then it's throats hanging from gaping jaws, blood pumping from insides that he can't unsee, especially in his sleep. Screams from faces that aren't faces anymore, until they go quiet amid the awful, awful chaos. He's spent hours with his back against this wall, unable to stop the scenes from looping over and over. ]
[ A demogorgon. Eddie never saw anything down there except for bats and vines, but he was warned of other things: bigger things with bigger teeth and claws. Between that and D&D sessions, he has a pretty decent picture of what theyāre dealing with, and itās not good. If the bats could literally tear the flesh from his bones, what could something bigger do?
Eddie knows that he died. He felt the world go ice cold and his strength seep away, and watched as the darkness closed in around him until there was nothing, absolutely nothingāthat is, until he woke up in Panorama drenched in blood and screaming. But it sounds like Mike didnāt actually experience a death. Not yet, anyway. Heās just brushed hands with it, and Eddie wants to believe that itās going to begin and ends there. He wants so desperately to believe. He doesn't want to have to mourn someone younger than him. How messed up is that? ]
Where? You werenātā
[ Down there? He doesnāt bother finishing his sentence. He shakes his head again. ]
Was anyone there with you? I mean, you werenāt alone, right?
Not- not the Upside Down. [ Because he knows what Eddie's getting at. He knows what Eddie saw there, at the end, how scared he must have been. A dark, unfamiliar sky over endless decay. Dead of night, and not a single star. ] Our side. There's this- There's a gate, downtown. And military.
[ There's so much Eddie doesn't know. So much Mike doesn't want to tell him. Because Eddie died trying to help them kill Vecna, and they didn't. They failed. Mike's death didn't mean shit, but Eddie... Eddie laid his life down with a purpose. It can't have been in vain. ]
They, uh- they killed all the soldiers already. [ He knows a massacre when he sees it. No one else was moving, when he came to on the pavement. Just the monster in front of him, a leaping blur. ] Will and his mom were there, at the start, but-
[ God, and isn't that the worst part? The one he can't even begin to speak? Because the last time he saw Will, Vecna was casting him to the ground like a doll. And he hadn't seen Joyce in longer, not since before the explosion. ]
[ He canāt even finish his sentence. He shakes his head and covers his face with his hands, trying to process.
Heās aware of how little he knows; he got the Cliffsnotes version, everything summed up as quickly and broadly as possible to help him understand what was happening, but it doesnāt take a genius to figure out that things have obviously gotten significantly worse. The gates arenāt just confined to his trailer and the lake anymore, and the nightmare on the other side has begun to seep through.
And that meansā ]
So youāre telling me it didnāt even work. All that shit we went through to kill Vecna didnāt even take. It didnāt evenāJesus fucking Christ.
[ He has to wonder if he played a role in that. Did his last minute shift from the plan dismantle the entire thing? Heād been trying to help, but what heād been the reason that piece of shit is still terrorizing innocent people? This isnāt about him, though. This isnāt about that pit of guilt that grows larger and larger in his stomach by the day. Heās had his moment, and this moment is about the fact that Mike Wheeler very well probably just followed suit right into an early grave. ]
God, this is fucking stupid, this is fucking stupid, this is...
[ Good job, Mike. Now he's on the edge of a nervous breakdown. ]
You're like sixteen!
[ Which is his way of saying "you're way too young to have died so horrifically with no one protecting you". Same hat, though. ]
[ So was Barb, when she died alone in the Harringtons' pool. And so was Patrick, while Mike was a thousand miles away. Fred and Chrissy were just a year older, and Billy two, none of them even adults. And the town took them all the same, brutally and horrifically, in ways children should never even know about. Sixteen is nothing, in Hawkins. It's sheer luck that he even made it this far. ]
It- They thought it worked. They took him out. [ He hiccups around held-back tears, and presses the heels of his hands against his eyes until it hurts, until colors flash across his vision. ] But he got Max, right at the last second. She's- she hasn't woken up.
[ He's been mulling over it for eighteen months - whether they could have made a difference, if he and Will and El were there. If there was something he did wrong - something he could have done better that might have gotten them back to Hawkins sooner. ]
But I don't- [ Cold, churning nausea rolls through Mike's stomach; he can't bring himself to look at Eddie's grief. ] He hasn't won yet. Not- not all the way. Everyone else... They're still out there. [ Please, please, please. ] They're still trying to stop him, and- and they're stronger than me. They have a chance.
[ This is one blow after another, and Eddie just cannot roll with these punches. Mike joining him in death is hard enough to handle, but with an unconscious Max and a very much alive Vecna piled on top of that, he feels like heās about to be crushed under the weight of everything.
Even worse is that he doesnāt know what heās supposed to say to any of this. Is he just supposed to nod and act like itās all okay? He canāt even help. He has no positive outlook on his own situation so how can he assure Mike that itās going to be okay? Itās notānot in his opinion.
All he can do is twist anxiously at the rings on his fingers, searching of something to say that might make him sound sound vaguely like a responsible, comforting adult and not a young man about to be swallowed by his anxiety and grief. ]
Sounds like you were pretty badass. Last one standing.
[ It doesnāt sound like there was a lot of opportunity to fight back, but not running counts as badass in Eddieās book. He swallows hard, his frown only deepening. ]
I don't know why I even give half a shit about that stupid fucking town, but...I hope they have more than a chance.
[ He would have run, is the thing. He would have tried to, if he'd had five more seconds. Ducked out of the demo's reach, run to find Will and Mrs. Byers and tug them to safety. And if- if they weren't still okay... Getting back to the tunnels, at least. Back to the others, to make sure they were okoay. He's pictured it a million times since the memories snapped into him - pushing up off the ground faster, or not letting the explosion knock him out. ]
Vecna, he was- [ Mike tips his head back against the wall, pinching his eyes closed. ] He got a bunch of kids. Dragged them to the Upside Down. He wants to- to use them, for something. Like he used Will.
[ He can't even remember if Eddie knows about that, and he doesn't have the room to care right now. ]
He took my sister first. [ It almost feel empty, as though the only way he can push the words out is to detach from them. ] Sent a demogorgon to my house, when me and Nancy weren't there. And it- My parents- [ A deep breath, wet but level. ] My mom was still alive, when I saw her, but I don't- my dad hasn't...
[ It doesn't matter whether or not Mike gets along with him, or even likes him. He's Mike's dad, and losing him is still unimaginable. And if he doesn't wake up, and their mom doesn't make it out of the ICU, and they don't get Holly back... Nancy's going to be all alone. ]
[ Eddie thinks he almost might be so stressed by everything Mike is relaying to him that heās ascending beyond anxiety to something worse. Slowly, without a word, he lowers his face back into his hands, just to block out the world for a moment and allow himself to exist with his thoughts.
Part of him canāt help but think that he died at a fantastic time, actually; he got to avoid facing all of this himself, not to mention that the threat of prison looming over him head wasnāt going to go away. But another part of him is just painfully upset. No, he doesnāt know exactly what happened to Will Byers in 1983, but knowing what he knows now, he could only assume the kidās disappearance and reappearance was related somehow. Kids donāt deserve to go through that shit, an it seems as if a whole lot of kids are involved. ]
Piece of goddamn shitā
[ He mumbles into his palms, finally lifting his face to fix Mike with a lookāsympathy, maybe, though he tries not to make it too obvious. Thatās the whole goddamn Wheeler family (as far as he knows). Eddieās already lost a parent. Both, if you count the fact that he hasnāt actually seen his father in years, but he doesnāt think much of his father as it is. His mother, however, passed away when he was six. Maybe thatās a lifetime ago at this point, but he does remember how absolutely miserable he felt knowing that heād never see her again. Itās a wound that never truly healed, though he never expected it would. He knows what it's like, and he hopes Mike doesn't have to feel it.
But he does have a question. His eyebrows knit together and he tilts his head questioningly. ]
How did it take your sister if she wasnāt there?
[ What do you mean the six year old Nancy was referring to wasnāt Mikeā¦ ]
[ It's confusing enough to break Mike's spiraling thoughts, for just a moment, the question repeating and repeating in bits and pieces until it makes sense. He blinks at Eddie, giving a jittery shake of his head. ]
No, it's- Not Nancy. [ Nancy's fine, he almost says, but even that's a fact he can't lean on. He hadn't seen Nancy in hours before he woke up here, and that's plenty long enough for even more of his world to get torn to shreds. ] Holly. My little sister, Holly.
[ Mike wipes his hands across his face, under his nose, up into filthy hair. If it was unthinkable to talk about what happened to him, talking about Holly feels world-ending. It feels like failure, like sorrow, like he's going to puke right onto his shoes. ]
She's ten. Fifth grade. [ Please ignore the fact that she was recently six. ] Didn't- didn't even know about any of this shit before.
[ Eddieā eyebrows knit together, and he looks a if heās been smacked in the face by the knowledge that thereās another Wheeler, and literally the whole goddamn family without exception has been dragged into this entire thing. Shaking his head, he mumbles: ]
Jesus Christ, you being a middle child makes so much senseā
[ But this is not the time for that! He takes a deep breath to steady himself and begins again. ]
Alright. Alright. Weāllā
[ Weāll what? Fix it? How? His frown deepens. He canāt fix his own death, canāt fix Mikeās, canāt fix anything going on back home. Heās utterly helpless here. All he can do is try to offer something of use; something to smooth this over enough just a little bit. ]
Weāll figure it out, okay? What about your girlfriend? The one with the superpowers, right? You said there was no way we could handle Vecna without here, andāwell, you were right. Whereās she in all this?
Upside Down. [ He thinks. Everything is a horrible unknown right now; everyone he cares about out of his reach, dead or alive or anywhere in between. ] She went after Holly. So did some of the others.
[ There's a short, rasping breath where he considers list them, but his voice refuses. It stop on the first consonant, and dies still in his throat. Still, he ticks them off in his head: Dustin, Nancy, Steve, Jonathan. Hopper, too. More people he doesn't know if he should mourn. ]
And what is there to even figure out? [ He looks over at Eddie, eyes dark and wet and so, so young. ] This is- it's basically our afterlife. We can't do shit for any of them anymore.
[ Eddieās mouth tightens into a thin, straight line. Mike isnāt wrong. This is their afterlife, isnāt it? Itās not lost on him, not when heās spent night after sleepless night spinning the entire situation in the back of his mind, noting how badly he fucked up and how it could have affected the people and plans involved. The fact that he canāt go home to actually apologize is just one aspect that keeps him awake at night.
Thereās a vague sort of hope: their friends could show up here. Eddieās initial arrival was right from the Upside Down. The odds of someone else showing up arenāt awful, but he doesnāt put that hope out into the universe, just in case it never happens. Instead, he sighs and reaches over to ruffle Mikeās hair. He can't offer much more than his company and support. ]
Well, at least youāre in good company. We should make t-shirts.
[ Like...heās joking, but they could. ]
Not to take away from you and your angst, but likeā¦how pissed is everyone with me?
![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png)
satanicpanics) wrote2025-05-14 05:18 pm
no subject
Shit.
[ He falls silent and slumps back against the nearest wall. His own death is one thing, but Mike Wheeler is a kid, and kids at least deserve the chance to be kids before death comes knocking at their door. He shakes his head in disbelief, wondering why no one did something. Why was no one there to step in? Where the hell were Steve and Nancy and Robin? Any adult? ]
How?
cw gory violence description š„°
I- [ He shakes his head, eyes stuttering around the room like he'll find the rest of the words somewhere on the film canisters. ] There was a demogorgon. I didn't feel it yet, but-
[ But he knows. He's smart; he can connect two obvious dots. Vicious jaw gaping right above him. Dozens of unmoving shapes on the blood-slick streets around him. It's a simple equation, really. ]
I've seen it. I've- I've watched them kill people, and it takes seconds.
[ Less than seconds. A heartbeat, really, and then it's throats hanging from gaping jaws, blood pumping from insides that he can't unsee, especially in his sleep. Screams from faces that aren't faces anymore, until they go quiet amid the awful, awful chaos. He's spent hours with his back against this wall, unable to stop the scenes from looping over and over. ]
I'm not getting away, Eddie.
WOW GIZ
Eddie knows that he died. He felt the world go ice cold and his strength seep away, and watched as the darkness closed in around him until there was nothing, absolutely nothingāthat is, until he woke up in Panorama drenched in blood and screaming. But it sounds like Mike didnāt actually experience a death. Not yet, anyway. Heās just brushed hands with it, and Eddie wants to believe that itās going to begin and ends there. He wants so desperately to believe. He doesn't want to have to mourn someone younger than him. How messed up is that? ]
Where? You werenātā
[ Down there? He doesnāt bother finishing his sentence. He shakes his head again. ]
Was anyone there with you? I mean, you werenāt alone, right?
š„°š
[ There's so much Eddie doesn't know. So much Mike doesn't want to tell him. Because Eddie died trying to help them kill Vecna, and they didn't. They failed. Mike's death didn't mean shit, but Eddie... Eddie laid his life down with a purpose. It can't have been in vain. ]
They, uh- they killed all the soldiers already. [ He knows a massacre when he sees it. No one else was moving, when he came to on the pavement. Just the monster in front of him, a leaping blur. ] Will and his mom were there, at the start, but-
[ God, and isn't that the worst part? The one he can't even begin to speak? Because the last time he saw Will, Vecna was casting him to the ground like a doll. And he hadn't seen Joyce in longer, not since before the explosion. ]
I think I was the last one left.
no subject
[ He canāt even finish his sentence. He shakes his head and covers his face with his hands, trying to process.
Heās aware of how little he knows; he got the Cliffsnotes version, everything summed up as quickly and broadly as possible to help him understand what was happening, but it doesnāt take a genius to figure out that things have obviously gotten significantly worse. The gates arenāt just confined to his trailer and the lake anymore, and the nightmare on the other side has begun to seep through.
And that meansā ]
So youāre telling me it didnāt even work. All that shit we went through to kill Vecna didnāt even take. It didnāt evenāJesus fucking Christ.
[ He has to wonder if he played a role in that. Did his last minute shift from the plan dismantle the entire thing? Heād been trying to help, but what heād been the reason that piece of shit is still terrorizing innocent people? This isnāt about him, though. This isnāt about that pit of guilt that grows larger and larger in his stomach by the day. Heās had his moment, and this moment is about the fact that Mike Wheeler very well probably just followed suit right into an early grave. ]
God, this is fucking stupid, this is fucking stupid, this is...
[ Good job, Mike. Now he's on the edge of a nervous breakdown. ]
You're like sixteen!
[ Which is his way of saying "you're way too young to have died so horrifically with no one protecting you". Same hat, though. ]
no subject
It- They thought it worked. They took him out. [ He hiccups around held-back tears, and presses the heels of his hands against his eyes until it hurts, until colors flash across his vision. ] But he got Max, right at the last second. She's- she hasn't woken up.
[ He's been mulling over it for eighteen months - whether they could have made a difference, if he and Will and El were there. If there was something he did wrong - something he could have done better that might have gotten them back to Hawkins sooner. ]
But I don't- [ Cold, churning nausea rolls through Mike's stomach; he can't bring himself to look at Eddie's grief. ] He hasn't won yet. Not- not all the way. Everyone else... They're still out there. [ Please, please, please. ] They're still trying to stop him, and- and they're stronger than me. They have a chance.
no subject
Even worse is that he doesnāt know what heās supposed to say to any of this. Is he just supposed to nod and act like itās all okay? He canāt even help. He has no positive outlook on his own situation so how can he assure Mike that itās going to be okay? Itās notānot in his opinion.
All he can do is twist anxiously at the rings on his fingers, searching of something to say that might make him sound sound vaguely like a responsible, comforting adult and not a young man about to be swallowed by his anxiety and grief. ]
Sounds like you were pretty badass. Last one standing.
[ It doesnāt sound like there was a lot of opportunity to fight back, but not running counts as badass in Eddieās book. He swallows hard, his frown only deepening. ]
I don't know why I even give half a shit about that stupid fucking town, but...I hope they have more than a chance.
no subject
Vecna, he was- [ Mike tips his head back against the wall, pinching his eyes closed. ] He got a bunch of kids. Dragged them to the Upside Down. He wants to- to use them, for something. Like he used Will.
[ He can't even remember if Eddie knows about that, and he doesn't have the room to care right now. ]
He took my sister first. [ It almost feel empty, as though the only way he can push the words out is to detach from them. ] Sent a demogorgon to my house, when me and Nancy weren't there. And it- My parents- [ A deep breath, wet but level. ] My mom was still alive, when I saw her, but I don't- my dad hasn't...
[ It doesn't matter whether or not Mike gets along with him, or even likes him. He's Mike's dad, and losing him is still unimaginable. And if he doesn't wake up, and their mom doesn't make it out of the ICU, and they don't get Holly back... Nancy's going to be all alone. ]
no subject
[ Eddie thinks he almost might be so stressed by everything Mike is relaying to him that heās ascending beyond anxiety to something worse. Slowly, without a word, he lowers his face back into his hands, just to block out the world for a moment and allow himself to exist with his thoughts.
Part of him canāt help but think that he died at a fantastic time, actually; he got to avoid facing all of this himself, not to mention that the threat of prison looming over him head wasnāt going to go away. But another part of him is just painfully upset. No, he doesnāt know exactly what happened to Will Byers in 1983, but knowing what he knows now, he could only assume the kidās disappearance and reappearance was related somehow. Kids donāt deserve to go through that shit, an it seems as if a whole lot of kids are involved. ]
Piece of goddamn shitā
[ He mumbles into his palms, finally lifting his face to fix Mike with a lookāsympathy, maybe, though he tries not to make it too obvious. Thatās the whole goddamn Wheeler family (as far as he knows). Eddieās already lost a parent. Both, if you count the fact that he hasnāt actually seen his father in years, but he doesnāt think much of his father as it is. His mother, however, passed away when he was six. Maybe thatās a lifetime ago at this point, but he does remember how absolutely miserable he felt knowing that heād never see her again. Itās a wound that never truly healed, though he never expected it would. He knows what it's like, and he hopes Mike doesn't have to feel it.
But he does have a question. His eyebrows knit together and he tilts his head questioningly. ]
How did it take your sister if she wasnāt there?
[ What do you mean the six year old Nancy was referring to wasnāt Mikeā¦ ]
no subject
No, it's- Not Nancy. [ Nancy's fine, he almost says, but even that's a fact he can't lean on. He hadn't seen Nancy in hours before he woke up here, and that's plenty long enough for even more of his world to get torn to shreds. ] Holly. My little sister, Holly.
[ Mike wipes his hands across his face, under his nose, up into filthy hair. If it was unthinkable to talk about what happened to him, talking about Holly feels world-ending. It feels like failure, like sorrow, like he's going to puke right onto his shoes. ]
She's ten. Fifth grade. [ Please ignore the fact that she was recently six. ] Didn't- didn't even know about any of this shit before.
no subject
Jesus Christ, you being a middle child makes so much senseā
[ But this is not the time for that! He takes a deep breath to steady himself and begins again. ]
Alright. Alright. Weāllā
[ Weāll what? Fix it? How? His frown deepens. He canāt fix his own death, canāt fix Mikeās, canāt fix anything going on back home. Heās utterly helpless here. All he can do is try to offer something of use; something to smooth this over enough just a little bit. ]
Weāll figure it out, okay? What about your girlfriend? The one with the superpowers, right? You said there was no way we could handle Vecna without here, andāwell, you were right. Whereās she in all this?
no subject
[ There's a short, rasping breath where he considers list them, but his voice refuses. It stop on the first consonant, and dies still in his throat. Still, he ticks them off in his head: Dustin, Nancy, Steve, Jonathan. Hopper, too. More people he doesn't know if he should mourn. ]
And what is there to even figure out? [ He looks over at Eddie, eyes dark and wet and so, so young. ] This is- it's basically our afterlife. We can't do shit for any of them anymore.
no subject
Thereās a vague sort of hope: their friends could show up here. Eddieās initial arrival was right from the Upside Down. The odds of someone else showing up arenāt awful, but he doesnāt put that hope out into the universe, just in case it never happens. Instead, he sighs and reaches over to ruffle Mikeās hair. He can't offer much more than his company and support. ]
Well, at least youāre in good company. We should make t-shirts.
[ Like...heās joking, but they could. ]
Not to take away from you and your angst, but likeā¦how pissed is everyone with me?