A mass of a heavy, crushing something landed in front of the portal, setting the ground trembling and momentarily disrupting the pull it had on the vines and the thought occurred to Eddie that the cloud-like patterns he saw in the busted fragments were parts of the sky. The sky was falling. The Upside Down was dying.
Somehow, he found the motor capability to stagger forward and take hold of Isaac by the arm. He didn't know how his brother was still upright when the gaping wound in his upper shoulder should have put him down, should have made him fall unconscious or at the very least, made his knees give out on him. Blood was dribbling from both the wound and his mouth as he gazed upon Eddie, not quite understanding the concept of death and that it had come for him just as both of them feared.
It wasn't fucking fair. They had tried so hard, they had fought so damn hard with everything they had to avoid this outcome. Eddie had dreaded losing his brother from the instant he saw the first nosebleed and Isaac had been resigned to the fact that he would die before they could defeat Vecna, if they could defeat him. Neither of them could have placed odds on the collapsing nether world being the cause of Isaac's death.
Isaac was attempting to stop the blood flow, but the hole was the size of a bottle cap and he had both an entrance and exit wound. He licked his upper lip as a habit to prepare for an admittance of something deeply personal; it was the exact same habit as Eddie had.
"I'm here," Eddie told him, though he wasn't sure if his brother could hear him over the roar of the crumbling sky and the shrieking vortex behind him. "I'm right here, I've got you."
Isaac tried to speak but nothing but pained exhales came out. He was panicking in his last moments, knowing that whatever he wanted to tell Eddie was going to forever hang in the balance, left unsaid. But he had already said it that first night in the school hallway, right before they discovered the underwater gate. He had told Eddie everything Eddie ever needed or wanted to know even though Eddie hadn't wanted to hear or acknowledge any of it. It had been enough.
"I know," said Eddie. "It's okay, I know."
The portal consumed the vines which were still latched onto Isaac, still hooked deeply into him. Isaac's fist was shaking as it grasped onto Eddie's shirt and Eddie's hold on his brother's forearm was slipping. If he continued to hold, he would be sucked in with Isaac and splintered into oblivion. If he let go, he would never forgive himself.
"Eddie!" someone was screaming.
Isaac's free hand cupped the side of Eddie's jaw and his cheek, saying goodbye. Eddie held on tighter, digging his heels into the dead grass, straining to pull back, to yank Isaac free. He would not be leaving this place without his brother. He would go with Isaac or he wouldn't fucking go. Nothing in life could be that cruel. No one could hate him that much to gift him with his only sibling for the better part of four days, only to snatch Isaac away, dangle his existence in Eddie's face tantalizingly, and then toss him into the incinerator.
"Eddie, it's all coming down, we have to go!"
That might have been Steve yelling at him, or maybe Nancy. He had no way of knowing; he didn't care. Even as more of the sky exploded near him and a chunk broke off to graze him across the side of his head, he held on. He was losing ground, he was being drawn toward the portal, and still he held on.
He could see Isaac's lips forming the words even though no sound came out. He could see that this was his brother's last command, his last wish, and God help him, he could not do it.
Let go, Isaac told him.
Eddie shook his head, remembering the pool and the vine that had tried to take him then. There would be no other side this time if Eddie relinquished his hold. There was nothing on the other side of this blinding white portal. There was nothing, there would be nothing, as if it had never existed.
He was bleeding now, he could feel it. A capillary had burst in his forehead and he tasted blood on his upper lip as his nostrils bled under strain. He felt Isaac's thumbpad press against his cheek and then fall away so that all that was keeping him in place was Eddie's grip on his forearm.
"Eddie, now!"
Isaac couldn't summon a smile, but the lines around his dark brown eyes softened as he blinked once. Let go.
And this time, Eddie did.
At the same time that he felt something heavy collide with him from the side, he saw Isaac flying backward, hooked on the end of the vine, falling into the portal…
An arm blocked the rest from view and he was about to rage and scream at whoever had prevented him from seeing the last milliseconds of his brother's life, but then he saw Max tugging insistently at his arm. She was speaking to him, but he could only hear every other word as if it were coming from a phone with an extremely horrible and spotty connection. She took his hand, dragging him along with her to the front porch where the others were gathered and attempting to all force their way over the threshold at once. It made no sense to Eddie as to why they would be trying to get inside the house as if some cursed ruin could protect them from a world that was breaking apart like eggshells in a blender.
"This way," said Eleven in the foyer, and led them into the dining room, pointing to the high archway above them where another pulsing, glowing gate was waiting for them. "That is where Vecna killed his mother."
"That's great, how do we reach it when we probably have, like, three minutes before this whole place collapses in on us?" asked Robin.
"Here." Steve pushed an old, rickety china cabinet into place underneath the archway and Eddie estimated that if someone stood on top of it, they would just be tall enough to pull themself up and through the gate. "Max, you're first." He gave Max a leg up and she scrambled up onto the top of the cabinet, smacking the glowing center with Steve's bat three times before it gave way in a thick, juicy explosion of something orange, wet, and gross that splattered them all below. She tossed the bat through, swung one leg over until she was straddling between worlds, and Eddie saw her disappear as she leaned sideways.
"Robin, you and Nancy go next so I can hand Jonathan to you," said Steve urgently, though with a catch in his voice.
Before Nancy could join Robin who was already on her way up, Chrissy had scaled the cabinet in three seconds flat, likely an attribute of her athleticism, and if Eddie was remembering correctly, she had also been a catcher at one point, so she would have needed the strength required to support a body. As badass as Nancy was, she was not particularly strong.
Steve and Nancy tried to be as gentle as possible in lifting Jonathan's body up to where Chrissy and Robin were waiting for him and it was Robin who formed a bear hug position from behind him and fell through the gate. Chrissy looked down, waiting for Eddie's assent that he would follow her shortly, but he didn't give it. He only stared back at her without really seeing her.
"Go, Chrissy," said Steve, snapping his fingers for her to pick up the pace and then lifting Eleven onto his shoulders to save her a step or two in the climbing process since she was looking about as steady as Eddie felt.
Eddie paid her no attention as he watched the world falling outside the boarded up window. In another few minutes, the entire house would be buried under a slab of stormy red sky. He considered making Steve go through first and then staying behind as the gate closed for good, trapping him in the Upside Down until there simply was no more Upside Down. How could he go back to whatever the hell normal was when he had seen his brother die in front of him in this world only a select few people knew existed? What was he supposed to tell those on the other side when they would ask about the body? He thought of the looks he would get of false sympathy from neighbors, classmates, random strangers. He imagined the empty casket, the empty grave, the empty funeral for a brother whose last mortal presence wouldn't even be able to appreciate any of it. No way in hell could he face any of that.
"Hey, you're up next," said Steve, cupping his hands together to form a foothold for him.
Eddie didn't move, staring at Steve and suddenly feeling bizarrely, confoundingly hostile toward him.
"If you need a hand, I've got you."
Still, Eddie did nothing.
"Okay, we don't have time for you to stand there with your fly open staring at me. Let's go!" When Eddie still had not moved, Steve's hand closed around his upper arm to force him to climb and Eddie felt the overwhelming urge to hit him, to punch him right in the face. It would have given him some sick satisfaction for reasons he didn't know and couldn't explain, but he felt that Steve deserved fair warning before he gave him a black eye.
"Don't fucking touch me." He stepped back out of Steve's reach, feeling his fists shaking. "You didn't even try to help. None of you did anything to try and help."
Steve looked pointedly up at the gate, stalling. "Help with what? Listen, now is not the time to–"
"He was dying," said Eddie vehemently, voice rising. "My brother was dying and I was the only one who helped him. Why didn't you do something? You had ages to try and help. I was standing there holding him forever."
"We had no time, man. I watched it happen in all ten to fifteen seconds. Seconds from the time that vine stuck him to when Max got to you. What was I supposed to have done? What were any of us supposed to have done?"
What a load of bullshit. Eddie had been standing there holding his brother for at least two minutes, more than enough time for one of them to have come to their aid. But he had experienced this sort of warp of time and space before, witnessing everything over the course of terribly long, drawn out minutes or hours when only fleeting seconds passed by in real life. The Upside Down distorted time and for all he knew, the last exchange between him and Isaac really had lasted only fifteen seconds. It would make more sense, for the vine to strike, secure Isaac, pull, and take him with Eddie only being able to hold on for a fraction of that time. With the world crumbling and the portal enveloping the vines, nothing would have waited for Eddie to even try to prevent the inevitable. Time didn't give a shit about feelings.
"Look, I'm sorry, but I need you to work with me here. We can talk about this once we're back where we belong," said Steve urgently.
"I don't want to go back," said Eddie tonelessly.
He was thoroughly prepared for Steve to headlock him and forcibly shove him toward the gate above their heads and he was thoroughly prepared to fight Steve for every inch, but the crashes and thundering around them went silent as if the world had been put on mute just for Eddie to hear Steve's next words. "Nah, man, I'm not going unless you're going."
The last thing Eddie needed was Steve Harrington's death on his conscience. True, they had to be friends at this point; it was difficult to battle alternate dimensional demons and creatures and not become friends but the guy owed him nothing. "Don't be stupid. You're not staying here for me."
"You're not staying here either. Look, I don't know anything about the loss you're feeling right now. I've never had anything taken from me with no hope to ever get it back. I'm a privileged, problem-free asshole so I don't have any emotional ties to break me, but I know when people are hurting and that that messes with their head, clouds their judgment. You can't think straight because all you can think about is what just happened. But we don't have time for you to try and get a grip on yourself. Whatever thoughts you may be having, you need to have them on the other side of the gate."
If Eddie allowed himself to be taken back, his choice to live with it or not would never be this easy again. Staying on this side meant the end was imminent, but if he was forced back into the routine of daily life, it would take a different type of courage to bite the proverbial bullet–or the real bullet. He had access to firearms; he could do it if he really wanted to. Or could he?
Isaac had told him to finish it, no matter the cost. He had told Eddie to hold it together for Chrissy and Max and the others until the danger was passed but Eddie was not the magical fix-all that held the party together, nor was he needed to fill that role now that Vecna was gone. That role had been Isaac's and there was no vacancy which meant Eddie was not needed. Isaac had not said for Eddie to endure after the fact, just until.
It was now after the fact and the fact of the matter was that Eddie couldn't be anything more than what he already was. He didn't possess that willpower to exist without his brother. For better or worse, he had come to know exactly the sort of man he was while living in his brother's shadow.
"I can't," he told Steve.
Steve swallowed what looked like a growing tantrum containing every swearword in existence and tried one last approach. "Your brother wasn't an idiot. He didn't know exactly what he was getting himself into when he signed up for this but he knew it would be dangerous and possibly deadly. He knew the risks but he came through all the same for you. He came back into your life at the exact moment he did because he was meant to and he took up leadership when we needed him to. He's the reason we all got here because it was his dedication, his bravery, and his plan. Your brother's a fucking hero and you may not want to live without him but you knew him better than anyone and wasting away in here won't help keep his memory alive. Now, I need you to climb your ass outta here because that gate's not gonna stay open much longer. Please, man."
He thought of holding Steve at gunpoint and forcing him to go through that gate alone. He thought of how he might live his last few seconds of life as he watched the gate close forever. And he imagined the terrible, gut-wrenching sounds of Chrissy and Max's calls for him cutting off as they realized that he was not coming home.
"Eddie!" Max screamed from the other side.
The house shook as some of the sky smashed down and ripped away the drawing room just ten feet away. He was torn, wanting to run from the responsibility and the spine required to go through that gate and wanting to face it all as a final promise kept to his brother. A quick breath went through Eddie, the realization that he could not leave Chrissy and Max as hopelessly lost as Isaac had just left him. He stepped up to the cabinet and into the reformed foothold Steve had made for him. Steve helped hoist him high enough that he was able to grab the top of the cabinet, but he was a little too enthusiastic about the hoisting part and ended up sending Eddie straight up into the ceiling where he received a very painful bonk to his head. Eyes streaming, Eddie stepped onto the top of the cabinet and sat bestride the gate. He saw a particle of black dust float past his face, his last look at this place that had swallowed his brother. His stomach churned as he fell momentarily sideways, then straight down in a peculiar one-eighty and into the waiting arms of those standing below.
There were more arms than people who had preceded him through and as they lowered him to the ground, he saw the faces of Dustin, Lucas, and Mike. With a hard, emotional punch to the gut, he saw Will cradling Jonathan's body just feet away.
"Incoming!"
Everyone released Eddie to catch Steve who had thrown himself from the gate and nearly overshot his jump. His weight took down both Dustin and Robin who had taken the brunt of his impact when he made the leap and as he lay atop them in a muddle of sore arms, they all heard the high-pitched whining of a tea kettle overheating on the stove.
The vines around the gate were retreating and retracting, the hole in the wall was growing smaller, and from the other side, a monstrous groan cried out one last time before the gate sealed off, leaving behind only a black rippling crack in the wall.
The only sound following in the wake of the Upside Down's demise was that of Will Byers's distraught sobs.
/ /
He didn't know what sort of story the others had concocted to explain everything to the authorities: their injuries, Jonathan's murder, Isaac's death. He didn't know and he didn't care. It cost too much energy to care and Eddie had none of that left. Things were happening to and around him but he wasn't really processing any of them.
Dustin, Lucas, Mike, and Will had commandeered Eddie's van from the school and driven to the Creel house on a lick and a promise that they wouldn't be caught by police, crash, or otherwise end up dead. It was by the van that they all waited as Robin ran to the nearest payphone up the road and put in a call to the police for emergency services for several wounded and one dead.
It was surreal, hearing ambulance sirens and seeing the flashing lights fast approaching as Eddie sat on the sidewalk being fed the cover story of how he had sustained the lacerations to his legs but not listening to a word of it.
At some point he found himself in the back of an ambulance with his pants hanging over the gurney railing as medics tended to his legs. He paid no heed to what they were doing and felt only a distant pain when they applied some sort of disinfecting solution to the marks. Another medic was tending to both the cut across his chest and the many scrapes on his face.
Outside, Max, Steve, and Nancy were being treated for minor injuries and Officer Callahan was interrogating them in groups but Eddie couldn't hear what they were saying. Several feet away, Jonathan had been placed in a body bag and Will was wrapped in a foil blanket beside it, stood guard over by Eleven who had borrowed Dustin's cap to not draw as much attention to her shaved head in case someone had a memory for little girls with shaved heads who turned up under suspicious circumstances. Despite how sick it made him feel to even think it, Eddie felt himself resenting them for having a body to grieve over, something tangible to hold and remember.
Chrissy was sitting on the ambulance tailgate, watching him apprehensively and looking like she wanted to come and hold him, but he couldn't stand the thought of being touched just now. He couldn't stomach the thought of ever being touched by anyone again.
Chief Powell climbed up into the ambulance and scanned Eddie up and down as if trying to decide if his questions could wait, given the state Eddie was in. "Son, I'm gonna need a statement from you."
"Don't call me that," said Eddie sharply.
"You're upset, I can understand that."
"No, you can't." He didn't care if he was being unnecessarily rude to the man. He didn't want to answer questions now or ever. He didn't want to say the words that would make the reality a bitter pill to swallow. What he needed was to be taken home and left alone and the fact that he knew that wouldn't happen for hours yet made him want to throw something. He hated these feelings of being completely out of control of his emotions. These things he was saying and doing with no filter and no regard for how they would be perceived by others wasn't like him, but he couldn't stop any of it from happening. He was stuck in this endless loop of shutting down or boiling over.
The chief consulted his notepad and read off the data he had collected, but Eddie wasn't listening. He was watching Max hug herself as she rested against the hood of the squad car and he saw two shimmering trails of tears running down her face. Her reaction was delayed but far from making Eddie upset, he felt endeared toward her. After all, she had been the one to come back for him in those fifteen seconds Steve had spoken of.
The medics were telling him he was free to put his pants back on, which he started to do when he realized Chief Powell was tapping his pencil expectantly on his notebook, looking at him.
"Huh?"
"Did those men look familiar to you?"
Wondering what he had missed and hoping he wasn't about to blow whatever cock-and-bull story Nancy had decided she would sell, Eddie tried once again to make sense of what was being asked of him. "What did you say?"
"I asked if you recognized the two men who kidnapped your brother?"
"Kidnapped?"
"Yes, your friend Nancy Wheeler said that you'd been knocked over when the men grabbed your brother and took off in a vehicle but since she said she didn't catch the plate number or the model of the car and can't give me a detailed description of the men, your eyewitness testimony is the best chance we have of finding the kidnappers."
Nancy had revealed that Isaac was missing, not dead. Did she believe that? Did she believe that the portal through which Isaac had been taken had deposited him somewhere else? Eddie had not seen him die, had not seen the lifeless body, and if there was one thing he had learned from all of this it was that death was not real until there was a body.
"Eddie, I know you've got a lot on your mind right now, but I need to know what those men looked like so we can alert the state patrol to keep a lookout for them."
"I–I don't remember," said Eddie truthfully. It was difficult to recall details that didn't exist. "I don't remember anything."
"With that knock to your head, I'm not surprised. They beat you pretty badly and dragged you behind their car for about half a block, so it's a small wonder they didn't rip your legs off. But try to remember anything at all."
Eddie's mind was reeling. He needed to speak with Eleven, but he had to conjure up two fake identities on the fly and hope it was enough for Chief Powell to let him go. He described his dad and what would have been an older version of Jason Carver and then lied about needing to be alone for a while.
Limping over to where Eleven had her arm around Will, Eddie knew that what was about to come out of his mouth would be insensitive to both of them. "I need you to look in the void. I know it's not fair for me to ask this of you after everything you've done and I don't know what I can offer you as compensation, but I need to know. Tell me what you need me to do."
Far from looking peeved that he was asking her to use strength she didn't have, Eleven nodded vigorously to show she understood and he loved her for that. "I can look, but I need static."
"Help me to my van."
No one took notice of the two of them walking in what looked like a very lopsided three-legged race toward Eddie's van which still had the keys in it. He was still in complete shock that the boys hadn't completely totaled the thing driving it from the school to the Creel house. He turned the vehicle on and turned the radio dial until he landed between stations with only white noise playing.
Eleven took a bandana from her pocket and tied it around her eyes, pressing a finger to her lips as an indication that he should remain quiet.
He didn't know if he dared hope for hope. He couldn't excite himself or wish for good news, but he had been so utterly focused on the portal taking Isaac that he hadn't considered that maybe, just maybe, it was transporting him somewhere other than the Upside Down. He would be badly injured if he survived, but there was a chance. There had to be a chance.
They sat with the static playing long enough for the painkillers the medics had given him to wear off completely and set Eddie squirming in his seat. He didn't know whether the length of Eleven's time in the void was a good or bad thing, for both presented problems and unfavorable conclusions. If she had found Isaac quickly, that would mean he was certainly dead, but since she had been looking for so long, Eddie started to think that the portal had opened up a gate to a third world and that was a can of worms he wanted to keep factory sealed for all of eternity. Throughout the wait, Eleven would wipe her nose every few minutes until her entire sleeve was a mess of red. She never spoke and Eddie was afraid to say anything in case it broke her concentration to the point where he threatened violence on Mike when he came to check on her.
Finally, when Eddie's butt had long since fallen asleep, Eleven pulled off the blindfold and shook her head confusingly. "He is gone."
Eddie had tried so hard to not build up his anticipation, yet he still felt absolutely crushed that Eleven had spent hours in the void and still only found evidence that his brother had perished. "You saw his body? You saw that he was dead?"
"No, just gone. He doesn't exist."
/ /
He couldn't have said what day it was or what month. He was going through the motions of existing, but little more and whatever anyone else might have said, he wasn't living. Some days he would be more aware of what was happening around him and some days passed by with absolutely no recollection of a single moment within them. Nothing after March 25th processed in his mind; the calendar had simply run out on that day and nothing was worth storing after that.
It was a marvel that he was still alive when he had expected malnutrition to catch up with him and condemn him by now. He never looked in the mirror nowadays, but he knew that he couldn't look much better than a corpse from lack of sunlight, poor hygiene, poorer to the point of being nonexistent eating habits, and an excess of wallowing self-pity.
There were times when he would become aware of new memories stored in his brain that he was sure were real but had to have happened days ago. He suspected that these visions he saw had really happened at some point, but time no longer had any meaning to him, so they were difficult to place. He supposed that there had been a funeral for Jonathan Byers but he could not remember what he had worn since he had no appropriate mourning clothes in his wardrobe. He supposed that there had been no funeral for Isaac because there was no body and no affirmation that he was dead according to everyone apart from those who had seen him taken by the portal. In any case, Eddie could not have afforded even a fourth of the casket they would have placed him in or a funeral in and of itself (not that he expected a wide turnout for someone who had moved away from Hawkins and been missed by almost no one).
That had not stopped a few neighbors from leaving vases of sympathy flowers on his porch that had somehow made their way inside by means Eddie couldn't explain because he knew he hadn't touched any of them. He caught snippets here and there of news related to the nation-wide manhunt for the murderers who had killed five people in Hawkins, kidnapped one, and attacked a group of teenagers and were now suspected to have killed their hostage and hidden the body.
Eleven's friend Doctor Owens had smoothed things over and convinced Hawkins that these two imaginary murderers had moved on and the town held a candlelit vigil for the deceased: Fred Benson, Dylan Eagan, Penny Kroehler, Harold Reyes, Jonathan Byers, and Isaac Munson. Eddie remembered being in the thick of that crowd, feeling numerous eyes on him as they all gauged the freak for a reaction to the news that his brother was most likely dead.
The fact that Patrick was not on that list meant that their efforts to save him had been worth it, not that it made any difference to Eddie after he heard the news. He might have once felt a sense of pride and accomplishment that his character and his compassion had been what saved Patrick, that he had done a good deed in giving Jason the means to protect his friend when neither of them were deserving of the mercy Eddie supplied them with. Now he felt nothing.
At some point, he remembered his uncle had finally come home. Eddie had gone much longer than four days without seeing him before, but those fours days of living with Isaac and the party had stretched on for weeks in Eddie's mind and so his uncle's return had brought a series of obstacles that he had not foreseen. Chrissy and Max were there to help fill in the gaps and relay the traumatic series of events and Uncle Wayne took everything in stride as a man unbothered by life so often did.
He was back on day shifts for a while but ended up staying most nights at the plant or a friend's house anyway, leaving Eddie largely unaccompanied in the trailer. But that couldn't be right, because Eddie recalled seeing Chrissy sleeping on the couch several nights and he also could remember nights where she was nowhere to be found but Max could be seen camping in the living room. It would stand to reason that they were splitting shifts to stay over with him and keep an eye on him and it would explain how he always found leftovers in a paper sack for him whenever he came to long enough to realize he was still going to school and in need of a midday meal.
He didn't know how he got to school since he didn't think he could have managed operating a motorized vehicle in his state, but he remembered feeling an excitement in the air that he could not partake in as graduation loomed closer. The weather was still occasionally cold and rainy, but the grass had turned green and the leaves were halfway grown in, which suggested that May was upon them. Springtime mocked him. How could anything new, full of life and possibility exist when everything in Eddie's state of mind should be broken, dying, and screaming?
Most days, he knew he didn't eat unless someone force fed him. One or two times he could remember sitting in the cafeteria with his unopened paper sack of food sitting on the table in front of him. He tried to remember if he sat alone or if he had company and if he thought hard enough, he could have placed Chrissy, Max, and Robin with him. If one of them set out his food for him or forced something into his hands, he might have taken a bite or two but it was never enough and he noticed only when his pants had started to fall down and he had to cut two new, tighter holes for his belt buckle to fit into to prevent the unfortunate situation of pantsing himself in public.
Academics had never mattered to him and his grades had been nothing to write home about, but somehow, despite the fact that he could not recall turning in one piece of homework since coming back to school, he was set to graduate with the rest of the class of '86 even though this time he truly had not earned it. After the devastating events of Spring Break, the police and school counselor had gotten involved with the board to give him a special pass since they did not want a twenty-one year old three-time flunkee walking their hallways in the autumn and Eddie was in no condition to take his finals.
He didn't know how he managed to get through a month of eight hour school days without taking in a word any of his teachers said. He had even less of an idea how he hadn't yet killed himself in gym class when the deadly combination of testosterone-filled adolescents chucking dodgeballs at each other and the foul odors coming from the locker room afterwards should have done away with Eddie after the first day of him being unaware of his surroundings. And then there were the weekly sessions with the counselor that the school had insisted that he attend. More than once he had locked himself in a bathroom stall to avoid going to these meetings, but the counselor would send the school security guard to bring him out and he would be forced to listen to the woman preach about opening up and sharing his feelings as she droned on for a full half hour twice a week. On several occasions, he knew he had snapped at her, told her that she didn't know a thing, that he didn't want her help, and that she had best leave him alone if she didn't want him to snap her desk in half.
After one of these particularly testy sessions, he had stormed out of her office and found himself in the gymnasium moments later, standing before the doors to the pool. A gripping sense of panic had taken over then and he remembered running like hell to go and hide in the back of the band room where Robin had found him later that day as she came to collect her trumpet.
He had no nightmares or dreams but would always feel both exhausted and restless when he awoke as if he had spent all night fighting to gain control of his thoughts. For this he could not be exasperated or grateful since he wasn't sure that he wanted to be aware of anything while he was sleeping if it meant having to relive his worst moments or revisit memories he would rather see die. There were nights where he would get the sense that he was in an eternal fall, never reaching the bottom, never finding a purpose.
After one such night, he found himself standing under his showerhead with cold water spraying in his face without impacting him at all.
A heavy pounding on the door preceded Max's voice. "Eddie, you've been in there for twenty minutes, I know you don't have that much hot water. Open the door! Eddie! Ed-die!"
He heard her barge in and saw the indent of her hand slap the shower curtain. "Stick your hand out if you acknowledge that I'm talking to you!"
He did, but had no reaction when she drew the curtain back with her eyes clamped as tightly shut as possible and her face turned away, holding up a towel to block his lower half from view just in case she was unfortunate enough to catch a glimpse of him.
"Get out of there, dry off, and get dressed. Nancy and Chrissy will be here in five minutes."
It made little sense in Eddie's mind that Chrissy should be with Nancy but he could not keep tabs on anyone these days. He had no idea where anyone was ninety-nine percent of the time. Yet, there the ladies were five minutes later, honking for Eddie and Max to join them in Nancy's car.
Eddie might have asked–maybe for the hundredth time–why Chrissy had shown up with Nancy and was answered–most likely also for the hundredth time–by Chrissy who said that she spent half the time at the Wheeler house with Nancy who was helping her to prepare for a legal battle against her parents in which she would be collecting her belongings and half the time with Eddie to give Max a break from babysitting duty.
Eddie had felt a twinge of an emotion then: a small inkling of guilt that he had done nothing to contribute in Chrissy's struggle to fully separate herself from her parents but he was hardly coherent enough to remember to put on underwear most days, so he knew he would have been useless to her either way.
It wasn't until sixth period that day that Eddie realized it was the last day of school–ever. He had made several stops at his locker between periods to collect books and return them to the appropriate home rooms, he had seen the banners congratulating the seniors, he had witnessed the final pranks classmates were playing on one another, but he had acknowledged none of it until his very last stop of the day back at his locker.
All that remained inside were marker and pen scratches, a taped up picture of the Hellfire Club, a few gum wrappers and even a quarter-filled bag of marijuana that had somehow not been smelled by passerby after sitting in there for who-knew-how-long. Stuffing all of it into one of the empty pockets of his backpack, he took his remedial algebra book and prepared to add it to the largest compartment.
"Hey, Munson!"
"Leave me the hell alone, asshole," Eddie snapped upon recognizing the name calling to him. He pulled the locker door fully open to block Jason from view.
"I need to say something to you."
Slamming the locker shut and shoving at Jason to move out of his way, he snarled, "I don't care about your stupid fucking beef with me or goddamned ego. I just lost my brother so stay the fuck away from me."
Jason held up his hands in surrender and there was an unsteady look in his eyes that triggered Eddie's fight or flight instincts almost instantly. "Easy, man, I just–I came to say I was sorry, that's all. I'm sorry about what happened to him and what those murderers did to him, it wasn't right."
"What you did to him wasn't right. You tried to beat the shit out of both of us, so don't come over here saying you're sorry he's gone when you wanted him dead after he pulled a gun on you."
"Yeah, I tried to kick his ass and he pulled a gun on me but he was doing it to protect you and I respect that."
"No, you don't. You just want closure for trying to bludgeon him so you don't feel like such a shitty waste of life. Get out of my way."
"Eddie, I'm sorry–"
"Try again at the ten year reunion when you might actually mean it."
"Hey, man, I'm trying to be nice here."
"It's not working. Move."
In that moment, Eddie knew Jason wasn't trying to antagonize him and had no aim to hurt him, but as Jason's hand landed on Eddie's arm to try and calm him, he didn't care. He rammed his shoulder into Jason's chest, sending him toppling into the row of lockers with a loud bang. The chaotic movement of undergraduates flooding through the hallways ceased as everyone turned to look at Eddie in eagerness, perhaps waiting to see him pay Jason back in kind after news had leaked out that Jason had delivered a very harsh beating to him for stealing his girlfriend.
Eddie was not going to give them the satisfaction. It was none of their goddamned business or their right to see him in such turmoil. All he wanted was to get Jason away from him and he had done that, so now he needed to leave before he imploded.
Jason tried to say more but was intercepted by Robin who had come running at the sound of Eddie's raised voice. "Now's not the time, Jason. Let him walk away."
Reminding himself to thank her later, Eddie broke into a run, pushing through the crowd to exit out the north entrance, making his way around to the football field, and hurrying into the woods to his favorite haunt where he knew he would be left alone. His heartbeat was picking up in no relation whatsoever to the physical exertion of sprinting. He felt something building in his gut, something that had been inert for a month now but was ready to burst out in full fury.
At the forlorn picnic table, he tossed his backpack up on top and yanked it open hard enough to dislodge one of the zippers in his haste to find the baggie of marijuana but as his fingers searched haphazardly for his escape from reality, they came into contact with what felt like a group of index cards taped together that he definitely had not put in there. He withdrew his findings and saw a pink post-it note on the front of the small stack of cards.
In handwriting he recognized to be Max's, though he didn't know how he knew that, he read: He asked me to wait and give this to you when you were ready. I don't know if that's now, but I think you need to read it.
And he realized what he was now holding in his hands and did not want to read it. This was his brother's will, his last words to Eddie, and that meant that Isaac had known how things would play out well before Eddie did if he had the wherewithal to give this testimony to Max for safekeeping.
Eddie considered lighting the stack on fire, burying it in an unmarked hole somewhere in the woods, or flushing it down the boy's toilet that had swallowed its fair share of shit in its day. These four index cards terrified him unlike anything he had experienced in a long time because he knew he did not possess the mental capacity to deal with such a thing right now. This would be the nail in the coffin, solidifying the fact that his brother was gone as if the past month of being in a catatonic state hadn't been proof enough of that.
He couldn't read these words. He couldn't bring himself to read what Isaac had deemed worthy enough to commit to paper.
But he was a glutton for punishment and he wanted to hear his brother's voice, if only in his head, so he braved his own dread, and began to read Isaac's legible but cramped handwritten words.
"I'm leaving this with Max because I have a gut feeling that if any of us who've been cursed survive, it'll be her. And I know you'll do what you can to protect her like you'll try to protect me. She's a good kid and both of you could use each other now that neither of you have your brothers.
I'm sorry I didn't tell you any of this in person but you're not one for hard goodbyes and I need you focused, not worrying about me like you always do. I don't have much to say, but there's a few things I know you'll need to hear.
I won't say that you need to take it like a man and deal with it like I did the first time. That was wrong. You'll handle this in your own way and I don't know what that is, but I know it'll work out for you. You bounce back better than you think and you've put up with more shit than anyone gives you credit for, so don't let this keep you down and out for too long.
I want you to promise me that you won't forget to live when I'm gone. There's always been more to life than me. You've got Chrissy and Max and a bunch of new friends that you earned all on your own. Don't block them out.
I know you won't forget about me and you won't want to, but there'll be some days where it'll be easier if you don't think of me. Remember to think of yourself every so often because you matter too. You may not see it, but you're pretty selfless and I want you to do something for yourself once enough time has passed that you feel you deserve it.
Remember that I love you, bro. I'll see you around.
Isaac"
He had no time to mull over what he had just read as he heard footsteps crunching their way toward him over the always present bed of dead leaves that surrounded the picnic table. He attempted to stuff the index cards away, but stopped when he saw Max making her way toward him.
"Did you follow me?" he asked somewhat indignantly as she took a seat opposite him.
"I've been following you around school for weeks on top of doing your homework."
Now it made sense why he recognized her handwriting. He should have told her off for that, but he was actually quite impressed and somewhat astounded that a freshman could do a senior's homework in addition to her own and with her own finals to be worrying about. When he pointed this out to her, though, she waved it aside and admitted that she had just copied what she could from Nancy, Robin, and Chrissy and bullshitted her way through everything else like personalized essays. It helped that the teachers all pitied him and were grading what he turned in based on participation rather than accuracy. He didn't ask if any of them seemed to realize that Eddie's chicken scratch penmanship had somehow morphed into Max's slightly more legible scribble.
When they had exhausted the subject, Max nodded at the cards still clutched rather tightly in Eddie's hands. "Did you read them?"
"When did he give these to you?"
"Before we drove to the school the second time. I left them on your nightstand in case I didn't make it back either, but when I did, I kept them for a while, hoping I'd know when it was the right time to give them to you but I haven't seen any signs of life from you for weeks, so I didn't want to wait any longer. I know you read them and now that you have, you need to stop. You've been gone for too long, it's like you're comatose. I know because that was me for the longest time after I lost my brother."
Like a moron, he'd forgotten that too. He'd forgotten that he was not the only person in Hawkins to have had his brother killed by entities from the Upside Down. He was one of three. Nothing made him unique from Max and Will in how his brother had died or how he was dealing with it in the aftermath, yet he felt that he deserved to continue grieving however the hell long he wanted to. If he wanted to disappear and mentally check out for another few months, that was his business and Max couldn't tell him otherwise.
"I'm not ready yet," he said distantly.
"What are you waiting for, then?" demanded Max in a fatigued voice that made her sound much older than fifteen. "Are you hoping you'll just get used to it? You don't ever get used to it. Never. You don't get over it and you don't forget it. You…you make room for the pain and you have to make the decision to move on or give up. I was ready to give up but I had more reasons to stay, more reasons to be brought back and every single one of those reasons had to do with my friends."
That was all well and good for her to say; she'd been through hell twice with them before she met Eddie and had a stronger bond with them than most people had with their friends. One could always brag that they would take a bullet for their friend, that they would die for their friend, but Max nearly had, and so those friends were worth more to her than anything.
Eddie had friends thanks to Vecna, but it was also thanks to the bastard that he had no brother and though he knew each and every one of those people would protect him as they had proven, he still knew almost nothing about them. He had known them for four days before entering his month long isolation period and coming out on the other side still left him feeling incredibly alone and abandoned.
"Eddie, you have to come back now. We need you here, we want you here. We, your friends, are all here, waiting for you to be okay. We're here for you and we're not letting you go. We're all trying to help you and I know we can, so please, please let us."
"You did hear me."
"What?"
"The night Vecna first tried to take you, I was calling to you. We all were, but that's what I said to break his hold on you. What you just told me was exactly what I said to you. When you told us after that you had heard us, I thought you had just heard our voices, but you were actually listening."
Max cast her eyes down, recalling the events of that night. With some small measure of bravery, she reached across the table and took one of his hands in hers. "I did hear you, and that's what kept me here. You had no reason to do the things you did, to work as hard as you did to protect me, but you did. You did because you knew, somehow, that I needed you. Maybe you didn't know exactly, but it wasn't just a coincidence that you and I were forced into this situation together. You did things for me that no one, no one has ever done and I know that I'm alive because of it." She was squeezing his hand tight enough that his knuckles had gone white but she didn't let go.
"No one can ever replace Billy, and maybe that's a good thing because he and I weren't a family. We hated each other and he died before I could see how much it would hurt to lose him, what I would be missing out on to not have a brother. What we were wasn't perfect and it wasn't a family, but it was something I didn't know I relied on until he was gone. And I'd been missing that for months and months until that night that Vecna first tried to take me. I was able to escape because of Lucas and Dustin and you. Your voice shouldn't have mattered then. You were a stranger to me. It shouldn't have made as much of an impact as it did, shouldn't have helped me break Vecna's hold on me, but it did. I heard you loudest and I remember seeing your face through that portal during that out-of-body experience. You had no reason to care, but the only thing you cared about in that moment was me and I've never had that before."
He couldn't stand hearing how he was some sort of hero in her eyes. That wasn't him, it wasn't what he intended or wanted. He had just done what was needed, nothing more or less.
But that was a lie. He had done much more following that night. He'd been adamant about keeping her out of harm's way enough that he had been willing to go with Jason to keep the jock from hurting her to get to him. He had used his body to shield her during the mass attack. He had appointed himself as her guardian as much as she had concerning him because…why?
"You can't replace Billy and I can't replace Isaac, but I've been waiting to break through to you for so long now and if you don't come back from this, that's not something I can deal with. I need you to come back, not just for me, but for all of us."
His throat was burning in open betrayal as he hovered on the brink of letting his month-long hiatus from reality spill out in a tidal wave. He blinked back the tears that he knew were coming. He couldn't do what she was asking him to do.
"Billy was the family that was given to me. You're the family that I chose. You were there for me, now let me be here for you. Please, Eddie, I can't lose you too." She came around to his side and put her arms around him. "You have me. I'm here and I'm not going anywhere."
It was time for him to fall and only she would be here to catch him. If that was not a sign that he needed to rely on her and trust her to see him shatter, he would never know it when it finally came.
Eddie clutched at her, leaned into her, desperate and starved for this sort of affection, for someone to feel his pain and understand it. Before he could stop them, the tears were flowing and he was turning his face into the crook of Max's shoulder as she held him. His shoulders trembled and he felt himself shrinking away but she held on, rubbing soothing circles into his back and encouraging him to embrace the exodus of his pent-up grief. His anguish and frustration and resentment broke through the dam of depression and the release was completely overtaxing. He heard a strangled, fracturing sob exiting his throat as he let the despair wash over him and work its way out in its long-awaited release.
They sat there on the bench for some time until he had nothing left to give and his face had completely dried itself on her jacket shoulder. He wiped furiously at his nose, hoping he hadn't smeared mourning phlegm all over her, but she didn't seem to mind at all. They heard the distant school bell ring to signify the end of the school day, Eddie's last ever school day.
Leading him by the hand, Max made a beeline for the blacktop to outdistance the foot traffic leaving the school and avoid offering Eddie up to further embarrassment. Steve was waiting for them in his car just as he had been every day for the past month with or without Eddie's knowledge or recollection.
The ride home was different today, though, because he was aware of every second of it, aware that he had a terribly and dauntingly long way to go to reach the healing he so desperately needed but that in time, it would come. He had made the decision today to allow it to come, invited it in, and hoped for the best. And he was aware of Max still gripping his hand, never letting go, promising that she was still here for him.