His eighth cup of coffee should have either sent him into shock from the high caffeine content or made him konk out but instead he was just spending every thirty to forty minutes rushing to the attached bathroom to Max's room. He had a walkie on him, ready to answer the call to arms if he got the word from Steve or Nancy who, along with Chrissy, Hopper, Robin, and Murray, were on rotation patrolling the perimeter outside in anticipation of a surprise attack by Vecna. Mrs. Hargrove and Isaac had been switching shifts as well to sit with Eddie in silence as he surveyed Max's unconscious form and they were joined hourly by Lucas, Dustin, Mike, Will, and Eleven.
The doctors had stopped the bleeding, removed the blade, and checked for the perforation of any vital organs. The machete tip had penetrated Max's gallbladder which had to be removed and she had been placed on several IVs to make up for blood loss. Her wrist had been set in a cast and she had been placed in a room at the end of the ward, but she had not woken up even after the effects of the sedative ought to have worn off. Though the doctors had no reasonable explanation for this sudden coma, Eddie and Isaac knew better and suspected Vecna had come after her mind in some form, trapping her in the void.
Eleven had ventured into the void to try and make contact with her, but been unable to find her and so they were left to wait and hope. That had been two days ago and Eddie had slept about three hours across that time. Including the night of Wayne's death, it had been close to sixty hours since he had had any decent sleep and was running off of fumes at this point. Mrs. Hargrove continued to provide him with coffee whenever she wasn't sleeping herself, but she rarely left the room except to find herself and Eddie some food. The accompanying pull-out bed from the convertible sofa had been her area of residence since Eddie refused to let her sleep in any of the straight-back chairs the staff provided.
Several times he had dozed off for just a few minutes to find that Mrs. Hargrove had placed a blanket around his shoulders as he slept with his head down on the mattress by Max's legs while holding onto her left hand. It made sense to him to not leave her hand unattended in case she came awake at any point and tried to off herself again, so he remained in his seat by her side until his butt had sores from sitting for so long.
When she wasn't out on patrol, Chrissy would bring in fresh wildflowers from a small patch of land that had remained untouched by the killing disease of the Upside Down. She took it upon herself to give Max a sponge bath every day and braid her hair to keep it tangle-free. Then she would pull up a chair beside Eddie and sit with him for hours at a time, sometimes falling asleep with her head on his shoulder or in his lap. Eddie made certain that Hopper was keeping tabs on her outside and that the rest of the Party were keeping her under close observation at all other times when she wasn't with him. Although she was disappointed and a bit indignant that she no longer was permitted to arm herself in any way, a closer look at Max was all the convincing it took on her part.
Company rotated, but Eddie remained the only constant out of a sense of duty to be Max's guardian until she awoke. It made sense in his insomnia-ridden brain that Vecna could not touch her so long as Eddie remained in the room with her, though what good he could do in his current state was debatable. Every time he closed his eyes he would reimagine seeing himself snap Max's wrist and then watch her stab herself and every time, the bone break was more severe, the machete cut deeper, until he knew he would completely lose his shit if he had to watch that scene replay one more time.
So it was all hail the caffeine gods since he had no intention of going back to sleep if he could help it. Vecna was far too powerful in his nightmares and Eddie didn't need any more visits from the supernatural when he was already having trouble differentiating between dreams and reality.
He couldn't have pinpointed the time of day if not for his wristwatch beeping two in the afternoon. Mrs. Hargrove was asleep on the pullout again and Hopper had sent Isaac inside to try and persuade Eddie to leave Max's room but when that failed, Isaac set up shop on the other side of Max's bed to while away the time. Eddie was staring at the dregs of coffee grounds at the bottom of his twelfth styrofoam cup of the day, watching Isaac sketch on Max's cast with a permanent marker, his handcuff chain jingling, and glance at him every few seconds until he realized too late that Isaac was sketching him.
"Why would you dishonor her broken limb like that by putting my face on her cast?" Eddie asked him.
"Because I need a visual reference and you're the only thing in here besides the window," said Isaac, showing Eddie his drawing which was actually fairly accurate in terms of proportion.
"Where did you learn to draw like that?"
"Slow days at the pharmacy and lots of scratch paper."
"Still, I wouldn't want my face on my own cast, so what makes you think Max would want that there?"
"So that her savior is immortalized on her arm until they cut the cast off. She could probably draw you better if you hadn't broken her dominant wrist. I've seen some of her artwork and she's pretty damn good. She's drawn you and Chrissy. And Lucas."
"When did she show you?" Eddie demanded, recalling how Max had kept her drawings hidden from view during that downtime in the living room a few days ago.
"She didn't. Susan asked me to look in Max's bag for something and her sketchbook fell out and I got a look at some of the stuff she's been working on. She drew you and Chrissy on the couch while we were waiting for the UDC's to leave. She got the expression on your face down like nobody's business."
"She didn't show me…" said Eddie distantly, somewhat hurt that Max hadn't considered sharing her talent with him.
"I think she figured it was a bad idea, considering how you threatened violence against Robin for taking a picture of you and Chrissy in the same position," said Isaac wisely. "As long as she kept her drawings to herself, you couldn't get mad at her, right?"
"I wouldn't have–"
"Yes, you would have. You hate pictures, and she knows it, so that's why she didn't feel up for doing show and tell. She respects that you aren't a fan of being looked at and I think some of that's rubbed off on her. I told you she's just like you, and that's not a coincidence. She's not into the sort of nerdy shit you are and I wouldn't take her for a metalhead and I can guarantee you that she's not a horror film buff, but in terms of personality, she's a carbon copy of you. That's probably why she was drawn to you from the beginning. And I may have been gone for a while, but when I came back, I could see immediately how much happier she was than she'd been during Spring Break. You had a lot to do with that, so give yourself some credit. You're almost helping to raise her during her formative years."
"I'm not raising her, I'm just–helping her, I guess."
Isaac stuck the Sharpie cap in his mouth to continue doodling and said with his teeth clenched around it, "Typical middle child syndrome. Not admitting to all the work you put into actually raising the youngest. You get to be a big brother without ever having the responsibility of changing diapers, teaching your little sibling right from wrong, or having to pull babysitting duty. You got a little sister ready-made, smart as all get-out, loyal, protective, a true badass. Not like me, having you come running to me every five minutes because you tried to stick something up your nose or because you touched something you shouldn't have and were trying to hide it before Mom and Dad saw. I could only tell you so many times that playing with the lighter would burn your fingers."
"But I was a cute kid, wasn't I?" asked Eddie keenly.
"Doesn't mean you weren't a little shit sometimes. You could've been the cutest goddamned kid in the country and you'd still have been stupid." Isaac showed him the bold letters he had written that said "butthead" with an arrow pointing to his drawing of Eddie. "It was actually kind of infuriating, how much you got away with. I mean, yeah, Mom and Dad were completely deadbeat by the time you came along and didn't give two shits anyway, but it's always harder to punish cute kids, which would explain why I got spanked all the time and you didn't."
"Couldn't have been that bad, could it?"
"Oh, hell yes it could. I was an ass-ugly kid. You saw my freshman photo on TV. I turned out like a skinnier, more rat-like version of Grandpa Jeb and I was as innocent as they came but still had to take the brunt of whatever happened because I was just there to take it. And I kept taking it when you came along even if it wasn't my fault because that was my responsibility to make sure our parents didn't lay a hand on you."
This was a shocking blow to Eddie who had never had a hand raised to him by his neglectful parents. They had been completely uninvolved in his life, but had that been from their own choosing or because Isaac had made it that way? Had he intercepted any and all physical altercations to spare Eddie the trauma of it all?
"It wasn't as bad as you might be thinking it was," said Isaac, reading Eddie's face. "Not anything unforgivable and not enough to leave a physical mark, or you'd have known about it by now. I'm not looking for sympathy, either. I'm just saying that when you're the oldest you put up with a lot of shit so your younger sibling doesn't have to see how ugly things really are. You can't exactly shield Max from all of this because she already knew about it way before you did, but you're still trying to take the brunt of Vecna's attacks. It's honestly made me so proud to see how much you've grown while I was gone. My own baby brother, looking after his kids. Well, yours and Steve's since I figured you two have split custody."
Eddie threw his empty cup at Isaac who went to make himself a cup of his own while refusing to give Eddie any more for fear that Eddie would keel over from cardiac arrest. In his absence, Lucas came in with a bouquet of flowers that he was delivering per Chrissy's instructions.
Lucas sat down across from Eddie, took one of Max's hands, and kissed it. "I've said it before and I'll say it again. She was lucky you were there," he told Eddie. "I should've been there to help. I shouldn't have left her alone for one second since we found out Vecna came back."
"He left her alone up until that one attack, so none of us had any reason to believe that he would come for her when he did," Eddie pointed out to try and console the teen. "It wouldn't have made a difference for anyone else to be there except probably El. None of us would have been strong enough to stop it."
"If she wakes up–"
"When she wakes up," Eddie corrected. "She's not going anywhere. She'll come back so you two can continue to cruise at platonic levels, as she put it."
"I thought we were actually back on again," said Lucas contemplatively. "At least, that's what I was picking up from her when she kissed me earlier that day."
"Then I would caution you as to how you approach this reconciliation. As a member of Hellfire, you will always be near and dear to me, but if you break my little sister's heart again, I will end you, Sinclair."
"I didn't do anything the first time or the second time or any time," Lucas complained indignantly. "She broke up with me every time and she's taken me back almost every time. If anything, she broke my heart."
"I don't care if she breaks your heart, your bones, or your face. Give me a reason to and I'll destroy you."
"You're taking this adoptive big brotherly role a little too seriously, don't you think?"
"If I was being too serious, I'd have a shotgun pointed at you, but I'm not. I'm just warning you as any brother worth his salt would that there are repercussions for hurting her."
"Well, maybe you should chill out with that because it's actually kinda scary."
"Good. At least someone finds me intimidating."
"Keep me posted, if you're planning on staying here for the rest of the day," said Lucas, rising to leave, though still with a wary expression toward Eddie's brotherly threats. "I have patrol coming up."
Eddie sat forward in his seat, suddenly concerned and alert. "What d'you mean you have patrol? Who let you out on patrol? Did they give you a gun? I swear to God, Lucas, if you and the other ankle biters are out there walking around with semi automatics–"
"Hopper is letting each of us walk around with him hour by hour just to give us a bit of field experience," said Lucas somewhat darkly. "Don't worry; he's not letting us handle any firearms and we have strict orders to run back inside the second we see or hear of any UDC's so you can rest easy. You are such a dad, you and Steve should start an 'I Am the Fun Police Club'."
Yawning, Eddie stretched his arms overhead but quickly dropped them back down to his sides as Lucas left, for he didn't want the teen to see how much pain the action caused him. He was having to heal the old fashioned way and the lacerations across his back had been smarting for quite a while now after all the hell Eddie had put himself through following his assault by Jason. He had been neglecting himself lately, but he had good reason for doing so and was still young enough that his body could recover even if left unattended for a time.
He had to mask his discomfort as Mrs. Hargrove came awake and took up Lucas's recently vacated chair, smoothing out the wrinkles in Max's hospital gown as she asked Eddie for an update. If she had bags under her eyes from fitful slumber, Eddie didn't even want to know what his face looked like under proper lighting, anticipating some frizzy-haired, bug-eyed creature that looked like it had more than a few screws loose.
"Have you eaten anything lately?" asked Mrs. Hargrove.
"No, but I'm not hungry," said Eddie as his stomach chose that moment to openly betray him with an unconvincing gurgle.
"You know you're not doing her any good by just sitting here wasting away. I promise you, nothing is going to happen to her in the time it would take you to go get a sandwich from the cafeteria."
"I'll be fine."
"You're so stubborn. I can see why you and Max get along so well. And I know you've been paying for half of our bills," said Mrs. Hargrove accusingly.
"Uh, that's not me," said Eddie stupidly, for her statement had caught him off guard.
"Well, if it wasn't you, then who do you suppose it was? There's no one else in this town who would go out of their way to help a struggling single mother make ends meet out of the goodness of their hearts."
"Could've been the Wheelers," Eddie suggested evasively. "They're loaded. They took Chrissy in for a while, remember?"
"I know it was you. And I think that's an incredibly selfless thing to do for two people you've only known for a couple of months."
"Well, you and Max were looking out for me for the longest time and I didn't even know it." said Eddie, uncomfortable as always when someone showed him appreciation. "I was just trying to return the favor."
"No, if you were just trying to return the favor, you'd have paid a bill or two and left it at that, not ten to fifteen of them on top of taking Max out for driving lessons and bringing us takeout twice a week and dropping by on the pretense of checking in on her when I know you really come over just to watch her skateboard and talk music with her. You've done more for her than her brother or her step-dad or even her real father have ever done for her in her whole life and you don't have to hide it or pretend that you don't care about her as much as you do. I know you aren't trying to replace Billy, but I also know you're trying to fill the shoes of the sibling she never had and I'm so grateful for you for doing that. She's lucky to have you."
Eddie wanted to tell her that he felt extremely fortunate to know Max, to have such a familial connection with her, and to be lucky enough to be on this wild ride together with her, but Vecna's words kept returning to him: how knowing Eddie hadn't exactly been to Max's health or benefit. If not for Eddie, she would be dead, but she would only be dead, not subject to psychological horror and anguish as Vecna came back for her with the intention of making her exit from this world ten times more painful. He didn't feel that this was a clear-cut win or lose situation; Max was damned if she had never known Eddie and damned if she did.
"I can see what you're about to say and I won't hear a word of it," said Mrs. Hargrove sternly. "It's not your fault for knowing her and coming into her life. She was already in danger when you met her and I would have had to bury my little girl if not for you. You've saved my daughter's life twice now. And I can never thank you enough for being there for her."
Mrs. Hargrove reached over Max's legs and tilted Eddie's head up with two fingers under his chin. She wasn't old by any means, probably eight or nine years older than Isaac, which would put her in her late thirties, and so she didn't seem quite old enough to pass for Eddie's own mother, but she certainly had that motherly touch that Eddie had been starved to for most of his life. He remembered wanting another hug from her when she had given him his first the day before his graduation, how inviting and nurturing the gesture had been, how he had nothing to compare it to because he couldn't recall ever having received a hug from his own mother in the eight years he had spent in her company. Now, he couldn't help but lean in slightly to her touch, as he so wanted and needed the reassurance of a parent to tell him he had done the right thing in befriending Max and inviting himself into her life as a surrogate sibling.
"Don't ever be sorry for being the brother she always wanted," said Mrs. Hargrove, and God bless her, she sensed Eddie's longing for parental affection and came around the side of the bed to hold him. So soon after losing his uncle, this gesture was more than he could have hoped for, and he absorbed every second of it with full gratitude. He let her comb her fingers through his matted hair and against his will, he felt himself lulled into a state of absolute calm, longing for sleep and for the chance to not have to think or feel anything for just a few short minutes…or hours.
When he came to, it was just past five o'clock and as he rubbed a crick out of his neck, his eyes fell upon a pair of mucky humanoid feet standing beside him at the foot of Max's bed. His eyes followed the pulsing, slithering vines that made up the exoskeleton of the figure all the way up to the skeletal head of Vecna who was watching Max with macabre curiosity. The multiple spider-like limbs that Eddie had seen sprout from Vecna's back once before were now extending toward Max's sleeping form.
He was too uncoordinated to go for his gun, so Eddie made to throw himself in front of Max but one of the limbs shot out and pinned him against the wall with a heavy thud, right over the fully healed scar on his stomach. It pressed tight enough that Eddie felt as if it were seeking to push a hole through him and a tiny protesting whimper was born from his throat as he tried to move away.
Delirious as he was, sleep-deprived, exhausted, and unsteady, Eddie knew this wasn't real. Vecna would not have been able to appear in the hospital without having to go through every other refugee first and the din that level of chaos would raise would have been certain to wake Eddie up, no matter his state of mind. Vecna had appeared in a few hallucinations to Eddie and one to both Eddie and Max, but he had had no physical presence, only mental. He could not touch them here.
Wake up, Eddie told himself. Wake up now.
He knew there was still danger in remaining unconscious, that dreams were hardly ever just dreams where Vecna was concerned and that upon waking, he might find that he had suffered some sort of inexplicable damage. After all, he had died in his dreams before.
Vecna's limb extension punctured Eddie's skin, pushing its way into his stomach so agonizingly slowly that Eddie was able to stretch each second into ten for all the pain he felt. He was bleeding out now as a waterfall of red cascaded down from the entry wound, spilling his guts onto the scuffed lab floor. His mouth fell open to cry out but instead, only blood gushed forward, sealing his chin to his chest as his head dropped forward with the last of his strength.
He heard, not Vecna, not Henry, not Eleven or Max or even Isaac, but his own voice coming to him from outside of his body. As tunnel vision threatened to overcome him before he could get a proper look, he saw himself approaching his dying body, lifting his face, and gazing into his own eyes with an innocent playfulness he knew he had lost since discovering the Upside Down. This was the Eddie Munson that would have been if he had not taken Chrissy back to his trailer that Friday night. This Eddie Munson was carefree, oblivious, and not at all someone he recognized anymore.
"You'll have to decide eventually," the alternate Eddie told himself. "All you can do is be ready for it. But you're not now, not yet."
Then, he saw the vision of himself yank Vecna's limb away from his stomach and Eddie's leg gave an involuntary twitch that awoke him back in the chair next to Max's bed.
He had nodded off again and his back was not thanking him for the downright uncomfortable position in which he had fallen asleep, stretched out with his butt just barely hanging onto his chair and his face pressed flat into Max's mattress so that it was a wonder he hadn't suffocated himself. Isaac's hand was closed around the top of his head to shake him awake and Eddie cleared the blurriness from his eyes with the heel of his hand.
"Whassmatter?" he asked groggily, struggling to remember the nightmare as it faded into oblivion within his mind with each passing second.
"You haven't left the room in two and a half days, so I'm insisting that you go and get some sunlight or something."
Eddie looked pointedly out the window where the lab and the surrounding area were cloaked in an orangish-gray fog.
"Okay, maybe not sunlight, but you do need to get out and wash your face or put on some deodorant. I can smell you from down the hall." When Eddie cast his eyes over Max, Isaac brought the big guns to the table in asking, "When was the last time you had your bandages changed?"
He could not afford to have his belt injuries get infected and Isaac was the only one who knew about them who could help Eddie keep them clean, so Eddie had no choice but to follow him out but not before he bent over to plant a swift kiss on Max's brow and swear to her, "I'll be here when you wake up."
He was surprised he was even coherent enough to manage the stairs leading down to the cafeteria when he expected to go teetering sideways at any moment with how uncoordinated he felt. Isaac had brought along some fresh gauze and ointment and both of them let themselves into the adjoining handicap bathroom just off the cafeteria for Isaac to redress Eddie's wounds. Facing the mirror, Eddie could see that Isaac was favoring his uninjured arm, as Vecna's healing powers apparently did not extend to bullet wounds. What a pair the two of them made, heavily scarred, battle-proven, and suffering in silence because they were both too bull-headed to ask for professional help.
The ointment stung more than the first time Isaac had applied it, which concerned Eddie that he might now have to worry about a much more mortal sort of infection, but Isaac made no mention of infected tissue or anything that might be cause for alarm. How ironic would it be if it was his own carelessness that ended up being the cause of death for Eddie when he had the opportunity to be viciously mauled by supernatural creatures? What a grand story that would make, retelling of how Isaac, Chrissy, Steve, Nancy, and the others died courageous deaths, battling to the bitter end while Eddie died of a few contaminated cuts.
"You wanna take care of the ones on your butt, or are you gonna let me do it this time?" asked Isaac as he layered on more bandages while Eddie hunched over the sink counter.
"As close of brothers we may be, we will never be that close," Eddie responded.
"Don't forget, then." Isaac checked his watch. "It's four thirty now. This time tomorrow, we're changing them again even if I have to drag you out of Max's room by your hair. Do not let these get infected, do you hear me? There's enough shit to be dealing with without having to worry about you not taking care of yourself. And a hell of a lot of good you'll do anyone continuing to sit there looking like you're about to keel over at any second. You're gonna come with me and go eat something, then you're gonna shower, then you're gonna go to bed and when you wake up, you're gonna be on guard duty with Hopper. You wanna be useful to Max? Keep yourself occupied. And if you've got a problem with any of this, feel free to piss off because I don't care."
This was a very different attitude from the understanding big brother demeanor Isaac had been showcasing earlier that day, so Eddie had to wonder what he had done since then to make Isaac pull a fast one-eighty on him.
Watching Isaac's reflection in the mirror, as his back was still turned to him, Eddie asked, "Did something happen between a few hours ago and now to make it suddenly against the rules to be camping out in Max's room?"
"Yeah, I became more agitated because Vecna's agitated, and I'm mimicking his moods whether I like it or not. And in my state of agitation, I realized that you're going down that path to walking comatose that you were in when you thought I'd died and that's something none of us can afford right now. You've gotta get it together because there's still others on Vecna's hit-list, one of them being your girlfriend, or have you forgotten about her?"
"I haven't," said Eddie defensively.
"Could've fooled me. I'm not allowed weapons right now for obvious reasons but I'm the one who's constantly tailing her to make sure she doesn't try to slip something up her sleeve for the worst case scenario. What if Vecna had chosen to not give you one second of respite and had gone after Chrissy just a few minutes after Max? You can't mentally check out like that when you have to help protect these people. I know you're tired and worried, but you have a self-destructive tendency to completely shut down when shit hits the fan and we can't afford for you to do that again. I can't afford that. I need you on board with me, so please, can you try?"
Eddie wanted to let verbally loose on Isaac at the moment. Not only was his behavior giving Eddie whiplash, but he had no say over when and how Eddie chose to deal with the current situation. It was all well and good for him to preach about how it was imperative to not fall to pieces at a time like this; Vecna was only using him as a host, not going after everyone he gave two shits about.
"Excuse me? Where do you get the gall to tell me what's an appropriate way to cope with this shitstorm that's been brewing? If I wanna keep watch over Max to make sure she doesn't try to cap herself again, I'll damn well do as I please. I think I've earned the right to a little casual existential despair in my downtime. Just because you don't have that attachment to Max doesn't mean you can dismiss my fear about her."
It was a low blow, he knew, but he was just about fed up with other people dictating when they felt was a good or bad time for him to wallow, in self-pity or otherwise. He was all for other people taking charge in certain situations, but not when it came to deciding where Eddie's priorities should be. He had taken measures to ensure that he would know when and if Vecna launched an attack of UDC's, he had made certain that Chrissy did not have access to weapons and was being watched at all times, he had strictly told Owens not to allow any of the younger members to be armed, and he had remained by Max's side in case Vecna returned to finish her off. He had been responsible in all aspects except in tending to his back and his mental health, so what right did Isaac have to be lecturing him right now?
"Just because Max doesn't see me as a brother doesn't mean I don't care about her," said Isaac warningly. "And you're out of line to say so. I'm not trying to downplay your worries or your problems, but I am telling you that we don't have time for you to shut down on us. It sucks, it's not right, and it pisses me off too, but tough shit. You want time? You've got five minutes because that's about as much time as I got to grieve for Wayne before Max tried to shoot herself in the head. I want more time to come to terms with it all, but I've gotta put it on hold because I'm needed here, right now, in all aspects. And so are you."
"I'm not connected to him like you are. I don't know when he's coming, so I'm as useful as everyone else out there who's just waiting for the other shoe to drop."
"Well, we both know that's not true," said Isaac knowingly as he slapped on another piece of gauze with surgical tape.
"Oh, you can go back to hell," snapped Eddie heatedly, knowing how stupid it was to antagonize the person in charge of dressing his back, but at this point, he was recklessly fatigued and couldn't bring himself to care one way or another.
"And that would be Vecna talking, proving my point. Just like Will still has the ability to sense the Upside Down, you've still got a part of Vecna in you, and it's telling you more than you're willing to admit. You need to use that while you can."
"You need to stop talking to me like I don't know what the hell is happening here."
"Because you don't. You still have no idea just how bad things could get."
"And you do?" Eddie challenged.
"I've seen it."
A shadow fell upon Isaac's face and Eddie had to bite back his retort because yes, Isaac had seen what Vecna planned to do with their world and even though Eddie knew Vecna's plans, he had not witnessed it in his mind's eye as Isaac had.
"Do you want to see it?"
"No thanks, I can imagine it just fine on my own when I look out the window."
"No, you can't."
Eddie looked at his reflection to try and catch Isaac's eye over his shoulder, but Isaac was gone, as was the bathroom. The backdrop that Eddie saw in the mirror was the expanse of Hawkins and beyond, burning, smoldering, dying. It wasn't like the Upside Down where everything had a wild, decaying feel to it, but of a world freshly ruined and still alive, barely. He heard screaming and saw hundreds of people being devoured as UDC's set upon them in droves. He saw familiar buildings laid to waste, crumbling into dust under the weight of the network of vines. It was more than enough to scar him for life, witnessing what might be, what could be, and what would be if they lost, but Eddie couldn't look away as if someone was holding his head there, making him watch.
"I promised Eleven the world once and she turned me down. I could have given you the same, but you fought to be rid of me. Now you both will get to watch this new empire arise."
The cracked, barren ground opened up and from within its depths came the bloodied, butchered form of Wayne Munson. Half of his face was gone and everything from his chest to his pelvis had been ripped out, leaving him as a hollow, gutted corpse that was looking right at Eddie through his one remaining dull blue-gray eye.
It's not real, Eddie told himself for the second time that day. He made to run, but his hands seemed to be glued to the bathroom sink. It was just him, the mirror, the sink, and the apocalypse behind him and he couldn't escape from any of it.
"Everythin' that happens from here on out is your fault, boy," said Wayne, though his voice was throatier than it should have been, like he had phlegm buildup that he had been unable to hack up.
Eddie tried to lift just one hand off of the counter to smack himself across the face and ground himself in reality, but he absolutely could not move.
It's not real, it can't hurt you.
"It is real, and it can."
Vecna stood upon a precipice overlooking the ruins of Hawkins and at his side was the mutilated form of Eddie's brother. Isaac was stooped now, deformed and almost unrecognizable. The black webbing had at long last claimed his body as permanent marks along and under his skin like something wriggling and alive. His lips were stained dark grayish-blue, his eyes seamless orbs of black. His skin clung to his bones in an emaciated state, rendering him all but dead to any onlooker. Nothing remained of what had once been a good, protective, courageous man.
Extending his clawed hand, Vecna sent his legions forth to raze Hawkins to the ground and Eddie had a front row seat to watch it all unfold. He saw people he recognized being ripped apart, whimpering and shrieking as they lived out their final moments in sheer agony.
Eddie threw up in his mouth at the sight of Will Byers's lower body being consumed by some gargantuan creature. He saw the remains of Nancy's carcass dangling by the neck from a tree, hung by the vines that existed to do Vecna's bidding. Pinned to a billboard overhead, staked through the heart with what looked like one of Vecna's limbs, and unmistakably dead, was Max.
He tried to call out to her, tried to make a sound in his throat that could express his grief, but his horror silenced him as he saw one last survivor standing alone before Isaac. She was so small in comparison, dwarfed by Isaac's undead presence which was saying quite a lot since Isaac was not a large man. Chrissy held her gun on him, pleading with him to recognize her, but there was nothing on Isaac's face: not hatred or disgust or anything that might be considered a human emotion. He was devoid of life.
Chrissy shot him twice in the chest but he kept coming, face passive and unresponsive as he made three giant strides and reached for her throat with both hands. It was incredible, how quickly Chrissy's face went from red to blue to purple as Isaac throttled her.
Eddie's screams shattered the mirror in front of him, breaking the spell that held him immobilized. He rounded on Isaac with every intention of shooting his brother through the head before the latter could snuff out Chrissy's life as easily as he had snuffed out Jason's because Eddie was not going to watch his girlfriend die a second time and he was not going to watch his brother be the one to murder her. He knew it wasn't real, but he couldn't remain inactive even in this nightmare. He had no room left in his brain for that sort of bullshit.
His pistol was in his hands, the chamber was loaded, but Hawkins was gone, Chrissy was gone, and all that he saw was Isaac on the bathroom floor before him with his handcuffed hands raised in a dire plea, shouting, "Eddie, it's me!"
Eddie's mind was reeling as he tried to piece everything together and come to terms with what was reality and what had been a vision. It had not been real, as he constantly reminded himself, but his actions very well might have been and still could be if he didn't get a grip.
"Shit," he breathed.
Backing away, he set his gun on the counter and clapped his hands over his mouth in horror at what he had nearly done, what he had nearly been driven to because of Vecna's hold on his mind at any given moment. It didn't matter if he was asleep or not; his mind was an open house to Vecna and he was so deprived of sleep at this point that he was only making it easier for these mental attacks to happen.
When Isaac seemed certain that Eddie had returned to his senses, he sat up, though wisely remained out of Eddie's reach just in case.
"Aren't you gonna ask me what that was?" said Eddie as he watched Isaac gather up the fallen bandages and other medical supplies. Any normal conversation following one brother almost shooting the other in the face would be laced with expletives, shouting, and confusion, but Isaac was acting like they had been through this scenario ten times too many before.
"I know what that was. And you're just gonna see more and more of it unless you start fighting back by taking care of yourself, so let me finish up on you before I send you off to do that."
Eddie wanted to argue that after what he had just seen, he was in no fit state to have it so calmly dismissed, but therein was the whole base of the problem. They didn't have time for Eddie to process what he had just seen with a day or two of fixated horror. He had seen Vecna's new domain and he needed to forget about it or store it in the deepest reserves in his brain and worry about it later. It seemed impossible, but Isaac had experienced this very same thing and had to set it aside without sharing it with anyone, so if he could do it, Eddie could.
Isaac held up one last strip of gauze and Eddie reluctantly turned his back once again, though this time he kept his eyes firmly planted on the drain rather than the mirror as Isaac finished dressing his wounds.
"I'm sorry," Eddie muttered when Isaac handed him back his shirt. "I saw–"
"I know. Vecna's already showed me how he plans to use me to kill whoever's left. And I don't blame you for reacting the way you did, which is how I would expect you to react if it ever came to that point. I had my doubts before, but you were ready to shoot me without hesitation and that's what I need from you when the time comes. I've asked you to make me promises before and you've skimped out on me, so I need to hear you say it now. I need your word that if I'm lost, you'll put me down."
Eddie had been ready to do as much just seconds ago, but now that he was being asked to do it, he suddenly no longer possessed the gonads. Only, he did. Twice now he had been prepared to extend mercy and put his brother down when he believed Isaac to be beyond help and it had been the luck of the draw that his hand had been pulled up short. And he had already told Isaac–whether his brother remembered or not–that he would do it, so what was to be gained by lying in admitting that he couldn't?
"Say it," Isaac demanded. "I need to hear the words, Eddie."
"I promise," said Eddie, wondering if he ought to have crossed his fingers in his pocket as he swore.
"Good boy. But for right now, I'm okay, so don't look so glum. The way you were waving that gun around, you're more of a liability than an asset. It's easier to prey on the mind when you're two gallons of coffee deep into hysteria, so I'm cutting you off. You need sleep, not caffeine."
"I need a nap, food, a shower, and a cigarette, not necessarily in that order," said Eddie.
"Let's start with food, then."
The cafeteria TV was on so loud that it was no small wonder why no one had heard Eddie nearly shooting Isaac in the bathroom. There were a couple doctors, nurses, orderlies, and other lab personnel taking a quiet coffee break but in a corner table by themselves were Chrissy and Robin and it was toward them that Eddie and Isaac made their way.
Chrissy was applying mayonnaise to one slice of bread while Robin was piling potato chips onto her sandwich before pressing the top slice down on it all, sending a crunching, crumbling mess everywhere. Licking her fingers, Robin regarded Eddie and Isaac and snatched up her sandwich somewhat protectively.
"Don't knock it until you've tried it."
"That actually looks really good," said Eddie, pulling up a chair beside her to make his own. Seeing a preview to Judgment Day ought to have turned anyone off of food until the end of the century, but Eddie's stomach was stronger than his mind at the moment and he wanted nothing more than to stuff his face with whatever he could get his hands on.
"I'll pass," said Isaac. "I ate more junk food in a couple days with you children than I did in the twelve years I lived on my own and hanging out in the Upside Down for a couple months didn't make my stomach any more accustomed to splurging on shit like that. It's incredible, the things your generation can shovel into your mouths without any repercussions from your stomach."
"Oh, there are repercussions, you just don't see them or hear about them until much later," Robin assured him.
Eddie took a few cuts of different lunch meats and slapped them on a slice of wheat bread, aware of Chrissy watching him tentatively. He thought for a moment that she was having a relapse of some sort or his gluttonous portion had set her off somehow, but she had a sandwich on her plate already that had a large bite taken out of it, so somehow, he knew this wasn't related to food.
"You haven't watched the news lately, have you?" she asked him.
"Haven't been near a television for a few days, so no. Why?" asked Eddie suspiciously, smashing Doritos down on the top layer of turkey. "Actually, no, hold that thought." He wanted to at least get in a few morsels before he heard whatever bad news Chrissy was about to deliver and he finished off his sandwich in five large bites, gesturing for her to continue as he struggled to chew.
"They've been replaying the interview my mom gave Channel 4 News since yesterday and she went all out this time. She said that you and Isaac threatened her life when she came to take me back with her. She said I was 'already showing' and that you wouldn't let me abandon the pregnancy. To anyone who knows her, it's about as far-fetched-sounding as you can make it, but there'll be some people who believe her–a lot of people, actually, since it's a lot easier to believe what people see on the news than to believe that there's a supernatural explanation for everything happening. Owens told me that they've had requests from several townspeople via radio that you be handed over to them to deal with on their own since the police aren't making you their priority. So officially, you're screwed."
"Oh, good, I thought for a second there it was something serious," said Eddie tonelessly.
It shouldn't have been funny, but Isaac started it by sinking into a chair and trying to stifle his laughter with a paper napkin, then Robin joined in and by the time Eddie felt a series of irrepressible giggles coming forth, it was too late to stop them. The other occupants of the room cast them affronted glances for daring to find anything amusing at a time like this, but Eddie didn't give a damn. There was an official manhunt out for him now, so he had better find entertainment where he could because he could very well find himself in the hands of an angry mob before long.
Once their laughter had subsided, Eddie started to prepare himself another sandwich while Robin dragged Isaac off to the kitchen to show him some seven-layer monstrosity that she one of the orderlies had prepared that she wanted him to try, leaving Eddie and Chrissy together to quietly finish their late lunch.
"I checked in on you and Max earlier, but you were asleep," said Chrissy, licking the flavoring off of a sour cream and onion potato chip. "I'm glad Isaac got you out of that room because you need a proper place to sleep. And you need to change your bandages."
"Way ahead of you," said Eddie, considering telling her the latest and greatest nightmare-inducing horror that Vecna had shown him but ultimately deciding against it. He stuck his hand underneath the back of her shirt, feeling his way up to where her bandage was plastered to her skin in a proper medical redressing of his own meager attempts to dress her wound.
"It doesn't hurt much anymore," she said in answer to his unasked question. "The doctors they have here are on par with any decent hospital, so we're in good hands. Max is in good hands."
"Yup," said Eddie unconvincingly.
"You don't believe me?"
"No, I do, and I'm grateful that they were able to save her, but they can't help with something that isn't human, can they? They can keep her stable, but if Vecna decides she's not gonna wake up, there's nothing the doctors can do about it."
"She'll come back. She will, and you'll help her get her permit and her license, help her apply for college, help her find a job, walk her down the aisle when she marries Lucas because we both know that's going to happen at some point."
"She's not getting married for a long time," said Eddie without thinking and Chrissy poked him in the chest to prove a point.
"See? Already having those older brother tendencies that no one's good enough to marry your little sister. But you know I'm right about her asking you to walk her down the aisle when and if the time comes."
"She'll probably wanna make that walk all by herself but if she didn't, she's still in contact with her dad."
"Yeah, and where's he been through all of this? Where was he when his daughter needed him after all that trauma she went through last summer? Where was he when Vecna tried to kill her the first time? Where is he now? She may still be on speaking terms with her dad, but that doesn't mean she trusts him like she trusts you. It takes a lot for a father to screw up enough that his daughter would rather be given away by someone other than him if he's still breathing. Like with me, my dad will never have that privilege of giving me away. That honor is reserved for Isaac."
Eddie had to wonder when the hell Chrissy and Isaac had time to discuss future wedding details in the midst of all of this chaos.
"I'm joking, by the way," she said at the scandalized expression on his face. "I'm not expecting a proposal and a ring anytime soon. We're still just teenagers–kind of. We have all the time in the world to worry about that later. But just so you know, I already asked Isaac to walk me down the aisle when the time comes. And I'm joking," she added again as Eddie choked on his own saliva.
"We need to get you some new material because the stuff you've got is gonna give me heart failure."
"You're going to give that to yourself if you eat another sandwich that consists of over seventy-five percent sugar. Come on, let's get you to bed." She led him by the hand toward the stairs, but he didn't think he could manage the stairs even one more time before he crashed hard so he took the cushions from the nearby waiting room couch, made a small bed of them behind the welcome desk, and then he and Chrissy crawled underneath it, settling in for as many hours of sleep as they could fit in before it would be time to face the world again.
With Max in a coma, Isaac making him promise to mercy-kill him, Hawkins gathering their pitchforks to come after him for something he hadn't done, and the ever-present and most pressing threat of an assault by Vecna, Eddie should not have been able to find the wherewithal to sleep, but even he could not deny the demands of his body and with Chrissy pressed in against him, he felt his eyelids grow heavy just seconds after laying down and finally, finally let sleep come for him.
