Chapter Text
March 29th, 1986 (Saturday)
Death hurts.
While the act of dying is not a guaranteed painful event, death is like a knife stuck in one’s heart. Constant, aching pain like a fire inside. For Steve, dying was painless, but death hurt more than he could describe. Physically (or however physical you could describe a ghost), Steve was fine. Mentally—spiritually—emotionally, Steve was in hell. He was tethered to the Earth and forced to live an existence waving through a window. Always trapped on the outside while his friends screamed, sobbed, and punched a wall all because he wasn’t there. He spent months silently watching, unable to help them nor himself. He, like them, was trapped in grief. Death was so painful; he would’ve given anything to be alive. To not be a ghost. To have one more chance just to live again.
It wasn’t until his desires came to fruition that he realized just how wrong he was.
Death isn’t painful, not compared to resurrection.
In the movies, if corpses are resurrected, they come back just as they laid in the dirt. Rotted skin. Dried blood. A smell comparable to the pits of every city sewage system in the world. In real life, a similar idea stands, but corpses don’t get the luxury of staying rotted. In real life, Steve found himself in a body not meant to be alive, and he was forced to wait for his body to heal.
Steve doesn’t know how any of it is supposed to work. Why would he? It’s not like they covered coming back to life in biology, and he definitely didn’t pay enough attention in church to know how Jesus did all that. Then again, Jesus was dead for three days: Steve’s been rotting in the ground for eight months. Things are meant to decompose. Things come from dirt and rejoin the dirt. How does dirt become whole again? However it happens, it’s painful. God, words can’t describe how painful it was.
At first, Steve assumed he was in hell. He’s not particularly religious, if his lack of knowledge about Jesus isn’t evidence enough, but it felt like the only logical explanation. Afterall, he was in Heaven. Or he thinks he was. A nice field of grass with all his loved ones, not that he had many who would be on the other side. Yes, perhaps that was Heaven, and he was brought to hell.
***
In Heaven, Eddie’s grandma was there. She appeared younger than when Eddie said she died. She had Eddie’s nose. Her light brown hair was pinned up in a style from the 40s, while her dress was more akin to something from the 60s. She was the second soul to approach Steve in the afterlife after his childhood dog, Daisy, who ran up to him with her tail wagging and mouth stretched in a smile.
“Daisy!” Steve may have had her collar hanging from his old bedpost, but he still shocked himself by remembering her name so easily. He was rubbing her stomach, covered in soft fur and smelling of daisies (ironic, he knows) when a pair of shoes came into his sight.
“You must be Steve.” The woman’s voice had a southern accent and was as gentle as a song and as clear as the sky above them. She picked some flowers without touching them as she spoke. Steve’s jaw dropped in amazement, he stood, and then he tilted his head.
“I’m sorry. Do I know you?” He held out his hand while taking the offered flowers with the other. Her own hand was soft when it grabbed his.
“I’m Eddie’s grandmother.” Steve’s eyes widened.
“Holy shit!” He quickly winced and covered his mouth, “Wait, sorry!” He looked around, as if he’d be burned on the spot, “Am I allowed to curse here?”
The woman laughed, and it sounded like Eddie’s—loud and unashamed. “Honey, you can do just about anything you want up here.” She waved a hand, covering her stomach with the other. “Especially around me, sugar. I’ve been itching to officially meet you ever since I felt Chuck found his soulmate. Let me tell you, that boy’s spirit is anything but subtle.”
“You knew I was his soulmate?” Steve’s expression dropped a moment later, “Wait, can you… can you see us?” Heat rose to his cheeks.
“Sometimes I can. Don’t worry, I never saw y’all doing that,” she explained with a knowing smirk before making a follow me motion. Steve did as he was told, with Daisy following right at his heels. “See, the afterlife, for those who deserve it, is basically an eternity of free will. You can read whatever you want. Watch whatever you want. You want to go somewhere; you can. You want to see someone who passed, you can. There are nearly infinite things to do around here; it’s difficult to get used to such power if you’re not experienced. Now, one great thing about this place is that you can see those still living, but it’s only with their permission. You ever wish someone could see you in certain scenarios?”
Steve considered for a moment, but he’d never really lost anyone. Not since Barb, but they were barely close. “Not really,” he snapped his fingers, “my friend Lucas told me to be at all his basketball games even after I passed, though!”
“That’s just it, kid.” Eddie’s grandma nodded, “Anytime that kid has a basketball game, a window will open for you to see to the other side. My own windows to Eddie’s life opened whenever he got a new album to listen to and whenever he discovered something new with his powers. When he first spotted you; I got a window bigger than our old house.” She waved an arm while describing; Steve was seeing where Eddie got all his traits from. “Same goes for here.” She glanced over Steve’s shoulder, then. “And when someone passes, they each get this type of reunion, like you and Daisy.” Steve looks over his shoulder to see a small glimmer of light, “I got summoned here the moment Eddie got attacked; that’s why his mom’s waiting over there.” Steve looked over at a woman sitting beneath a willow tree. She looked almost exactly like Eddie: a different nose but similar eyes and hair.
“Is that why I’m here?”
“You’re a smart cookie, Steve. That’s why we’re all here. As much as I wanted to meet you, I’m not here for you.” She tilted her chin towards the glimmering light, “Eddie will be here any second. The time of dying is different for everyone; it’s almost always a waiting game.” Steve nodded and sat back on the ground to continue petting his dog, as the woman continued showing off her powers. At one point, she called over Eddie’s mom to introduce to Steve. Eddie’s grandfather showed up shortly after that. The four then sat in the field, and they waited for any second to come.
And the seconds did come, and they passed. Seconds turned to minutes. Into hours. Time moved faster in the afterlife; at least, that’s what Eddie’s grandma said. They sat and chatted in the field waiting, but Eddie never showed. It wasn’t until nearly three hours passed that the woman finally spoke up. “Something’s wrong,” she announced while getting back to her feet. Steve frowned and looked over, and the glimmering light was dimmer. It flickered and hummed, then it was suddenly gone. Eddie’s mom stood from with a gasp just as Steve ran forward, as if the light somehow drifted away—too far for him to see it.
“What’s going on?” Steve asked, looking to Eddie’s grandma for help, but the woman looked just as confused as he did. Eddie’s grandfather was holding her arm, but she stepped away to grab Steve’s.
“This has never happened before. Sometimes people take a while to come over—be it they are ghosts or taking their time dying. They don’t just disappear!” She floundered, waving her hands until a journal was summoned. It looked like Eddie’s but far older. She flipped through the pages and shook her head. “Even if he was revived, the light wouldn’t have disappeared; it would’ve shown us he survived! I…” she trailed off upon returning her gaze upwards. She looked over Steve’s shoulder, and a horrified expression etched across her features. Whatever was behind Steve began to glow red, shining across her face like a stoplight.
“Steve!“ She shouted and reached forward just as something grabbed the back of Steve’s shirt and yanked him backwards. He fell back, passing through some kind of portal into a black void. All that could be heard was his own terrified shriek. All he could feel was wind. Soon, he heard whispers and felt a stabbing pain in his heart, like being electrocuted.
The last thing he saw before coming back to life was Eddie’s grandma still reaching out for him, as he fell back to Earth.
Ripped out of Heaven and brought back to life.
Dragged to hell.
***
If Steve wrote poems on all the pain he’s experienced, they’d fill the library in hell and make the tortured souls weep out of pity. Mentally, Steve has fought battles and trauma enough to leave him screaming nightly from his own mind. Spiritually, his soul has been tethered across town, dragged, beaten, reached heaven, and ripped down to Earth. Physically, he has been beaten, scratched, bitten, stabbed, and prodded like cattle.
Steve Harrington is no stranger to pain. This was not pain. This was perdition. This was enough to make Steve crave something beyond death. He craved a release like eternal darkness. To be numb and empty forever. To be nothing instead of this pained something. To be dirt again.
He was still dirt. The rot inside him turned with each passing second. Despite knowing his death on a personal level, Steve’s decomposition wasn’t something he didn’t get a first row viewing of. So, this was his chance in seeing the show up close and personal. Well, not exactly seeing.
They didn’t teach this in any class Steve’s taken, but apparently the eyes are the first to go when a person decomposes. In a mirrored fashion, they are the last to come back. Despite the eyes taking a less than a month to get rid of, however, the nervous system can take years. This means, while Steve was blind, he could feel everything.
The first moment he fell back into his body came with a tingling sensation. Small tickles danced like goosebumps, but they quickly turned into painful pinpricks, like a limb falling asleep. It was less than five seconds of his soul being back in his corpse that he felt red hot, searing pain. The muscles in Steve’s neck were not healed, so, not only was he blind, but he was silenced as well. He was silenced from the need to scream. Hell, if he could scream, it probably wouldn’t be a scream. It would be weak wheezes, because he was breathing, right? He couldn’t tell by the pain, but he was sure he was breathing, and his heart was beating. They had to be. He was alive. The functioning organs in his thoracic cavity proved it, but his heart was betraying him.
Heartbreak stems from many things. Break ups. Loss. Grief. Losing someone or something near and dear. Steve never thought it could come from within oneself. Even beyond all the pain, he felt his heart chip and shatter with each beat. The heartbreak of being alive. He wanted to be dead. He wanted nothing more than to be dead, even if that wasn’t true mercy. He didn’t feel this kind of pain as a ghost. He felt heartbreak then, sure, but, selfishly, he’d lose a thousand friends if it meant not living through this pain for another moment.
There was no relief. No break. Healing a rotted body meant no rest for his wicked self. No relief to pain came from his voice, and no tears could fall down a dead man’s cheeks. He imagines if they did, they’d smell like rot. They’d taste like iron and spoiled meat. They’d taste wrong. This was all wrong.
Steve couldn’t tell how much time passed. It could be seconds or years. All he knew was that he couldn’t see. He couldn’t speak. He could barely breathe, but each breath felt like claws slicing through his raw, rotten esophagus. He could feel the wind pass through his exposed ribs and tickle his dry yet working lungs. He knows they worked because they ached with each rise and fall of his chest. Eventually, he gained a sense beyond feeling, but he was immediately assaulted by the strong taste of rotten meat. He could taste the mold on his own tongue and the slime of whatever bugs still slithered and crawled inside his mouth cavity. He’d close his jaw or spit them out, but his lips were still ripped away, exposing his cavity-ridden teeth and mouth to the outside world. The bugs crawled between the gaps of his molars, and they slept in his dried gums like beds.
A motel for bugs; that’s all he was. The thought would make him giggle if he could. The pain was clearly quick to make him mad. Luckily, the pain was not constant. If the pain were constant and not slowly worsening and coming in waves, then he’d forever lose himself. The changes kept him sane, albeit tortured still.
As any good motel has, Steve’s rotted corpse provided the bugs sanctuary elsewhere; they were everywhere. He could feel them crawling across the exposed tendons of his arms, legs, and across his bones. Hundreds of tiny legs and pinching mouths that only added to the pain and discomfort. Sooner than he would’ve liked, he began to hear them. Small chirps and scratching noises, as they scurried through his skull like a bad song. Soon, they became trapped inside his healing stomach, making him feel nauseous on top of pained. Some became aware that they were feeding on a living body, and they ran for an exit through rotted holes and tunnels. The rest were not so smart, and they became trapped in darkness within rotted and new flesh alike. Holes sealed shut, as the motel for bugs slowly shut down.
Vacant, yet all too full. The bugs continued their search for meat and survival. The maggots took their place in his eye sockets and the beetles crawled out of his ears to escape his skull. He’d give everything to not feel the worms in his intestines or the roaches inside his arm.
Steve remembered in that moment of how he used to treat bugs; he wasn’t particular mean; he didn’t hate them. He slapped mosquitos and flies, admittedly, but he let spiders outside using a cup and a piece of paper, and he never stepped on a worm purposefully. He even rescued a butterfly with a clipped wing. Now, he wished death to all of them. He wished them gone forever. He wished each one would suffer just as he suffered.
Believe it or not, the bugs weren’t even the worst part.
Steve was so cold. Despite a beating heart, he had no blood. Or, he did have blood, but it had nowhere to go. He could feel what he believed to be blood dripping down his bones. It felt like a thick sludge and was full of drowning ants. It, like the rest of him, was freezing to the touch. This was not why he was cold, however. Even if the blood was not as thick and warm, he’d still freeze. He had no skin, not enough to provide any semblance of warmth.
“Did you know, if a person gets skinned fast enough, they’d die of hypothermia?” Dustin had once told Steve. The kid had begun to grow interested in morbid curiosities, and he dropped disturbing facts often. The skin was the body’s largest organ, and it was what kept someone warm. It kept the heat inside. With no skin, Steve was forced to freeze, like being put in a vat of ice water. Somehow, the cold felt like flames, and the bugs were the embers. Without skin, he’d stay frozen. Without skin, he’d stay lit ablaze in the invisible heat of hellfire, and he wanted nothing more than for it to stop, but it never did.
The pain got to the point where Steve could not think. All that he did was feel. He sat there while his muscles grew back. They grew over his bones and surrounded his tendons, which soon got covered in that cold sludge to regain moisture. Somehow, his sense of smell came after his sense of taste. It not only made his sense of taste stronger, but it made everything that much worse. He reeked of rotten food and roadkill. There was a distinct iron taste mixed with the stench of sulfur and mold. Like vomit and shit. Like everything bad in the world, that’s what it smelled like.
Moving his tongue was more satisfying than he’d admit, as he used it to urge remaining beetles towards the exit of his mouth. His brittle teeth broke apart then healed, as if he were re-losing baby teeth just to grow in new ones.
The first thought he had in a while was the fact that he was thirsty. How strange it is to have focused on such a minor discomfort in the face of everything that was happening. In the face of hot lava burning his skin and the biting cold of the air around him. Each nerve was on fire, and his body was throbbing. It was almost numbing. Almost, and he wishes it was. He wishes it were the kind of pain so awful that he passed out, but he didn’t. Whatever reflexes that could allow for such a thing to happen hadn’t healed.
Cartilage formed around his ears and nose, finally covering up the holes that were otherwise frozen from the air.
He groaned, and it felt like swallowing acid. His vocal cords rubbed together like two pieces of rusted metal wire. His body was singing the songs of the damned. He had realized by then that this wasn’t hell. Hell would’ve been preferred. Especially when his fingernails grew back, and it felt like they were only being ripped apart. His lips stretched over his jaw, and it felt like they were getting sliced with barbed wire.
He's not religious, be Steve will admit he began to pray. Every thought screamed to the heavens. Every pained groan was actually a shout weakened by a still healing throat. Each exhale was fire, and each inhale was ice. He knew it was almost done. The healing began to slow down, and he began to feel warmth from his skin finally becoming his blanket of protection. Flesh and dermis and whatever else he failed to learn in anatomy came back. He got back warmth but not peace. He was still in pain, as his eyes finally began to heal. They bloomed like flowers, growing behind newly regrown eyelids.
Once fully healed, he still couldn’t scream. His vocal cords were too weak to do so, so he did nothing but painfully whimper and groan until he could see the darkness of his lids and the lights beyond them.
Steve finally opened his eyes for the first time in months. He looked down to see the ripped suit he was buried in. There were still small bits of flesh open, and bugs crawled out of him and to the floor until they were gone. The holes in his flesh closed, leaving behind pristine skin.
Then it happens.
Steve is alive.
He’s fucking alive.
“Holy shit.” Steve looks up at the source of the voice, slightly muffled by the blood in his ears, and Eddie is standing in the doorway. He’s got on his camo jacket, a pair of tattered jeans, a ripped Hellfire shirt, has scarred skin, and has glowing, red eyes. “It worked.” His following smile is as bright as the sun, lighting up his trailer. Well, the Upside Down version of his trailer.
There are many emotions Steve should be feeling—is feeling, but they all get quickly pushed away by a sudden wave of exhaustion. Turns out, being dead doesn’t actually mean getting well rested. He opens his mouth to yawn, something he nearly had forgotten how to do, but quickly shuts his mouth as his stomach grumbles. Some trapped gas shifts… no, something crawls inside his stomach. Steve shoots up and bends to the side to empty his stomach onto the floor. What comes up would be enough to make him vomit again if he had anything left. There, on the floor, is now a puddle of black sludge reeking of rotten fruit and meat. It moves with maggots and ants that failed to escape.
Steve is about to fall back when a hand on his shoulder makes him flinch. He looks up to see Eddie smiling comfortingly down at him. A swallow, an attempt to speak, and he spits up more sludge.
“I’m so sorry; there was no way to make the process any faster.” Eddie wipes Steve’s mouth with a paper towel. Steve groans, and it sounds like a dying squeaker toy. “Oh, baby…” Eddie raises a hand, and a water bottle floats from somewhere inside the trailer to his palm. Steve doesn’t have the energy to react, so he merely opens his mouth to let Eddie pour some cold water down his throat. He swallows it, groans, then opens his mouth for more. With Eddie’s help, he somehow finishes the bottle.
“Thank… thank you…” his voice is barely a whisper, and Eddie gently shushes him.
“Don’t try to speak, Stevie. You still need time.” Eddie eases Steve to lay down, and he kneels beside him. He smiles. “I’m happy you’re here.”
Steve wishes he could say the same. Even now that his torture was through, he can’t say he’s glad. It’s a melancholy feeling to be alive. To spend months begging the universe to come back; to finally find peace in dying; to come back to life after finding an afterlife worth dying for. He wants to cry but is too dehydrated to do so. All he can do is slouch into the couch and stare forward, as he’s continuously reminded of the pain of living.
Mental pain is something difficult to move past, but after spending 8 months without any real physical pain, it almost makes him miss the mental torture that was being a ghost. His body aches. His heart hurts. Every limb feels stiff. His throat hurts. His eyes hurt. His head hurts. Everything feels brand new and tenfold. He can’t move. He can’t function. He can’t do anything without wanting to cry. All he can do is look up at Eddie and beg for answers, even as his body begs for rest.
“You don’t deserve this pain,” Eddie laments before raising his hands. One rests on Steve’s waist while the back of the other carefully touches his forehead. There’s a slight jolt, like being shocked, and his pain is soothed. It feels like a wave of warm water has splashed over his shaking frame, and he sighs, relaxing deeper into the cushions. He opens his mouth to speak, but Eddie shakes his head. “Sleep…” he whispers, and it echoes like a siren song. Steve couldn’t fight the spell even if he wanted to, as his eyes close. He sleeps in comfort and barely remembers how, the last time he did so, he died. Sleep shows no mercy for Steve, as he learned then, but now he closes his eyes.
He has no nightmares. Just dreams of heaven. Of Eddie’s grandma. And of a tall creature with red eyes.
He sees the power of the sun in the palm of their hands.
***
Dying hurts.
While nothing can compare to the pain of grief, dying is a physical pain Eddie will likely never forget. He put on a brave face while Steve was there and, before the ghost faded away, hadn’t felt all that bad. The pain felt muffled by the love and power he felt coming from Steve, who shared his energy even as it was slowly drifting to the other side. Then, the ghost faded, and all Eddie could feel was red, hot fire in his veins. The shock of it all made him choke on a shout.
It didn’t take long for him to join Steve—mere seconds, in fact.
Eddie has never been religious, but he saw something pretty damn close to Heaven. There was his mom and grandma. He didn’t see his grandpa, but the man died before he was born. There were birds and trees, and there was Steve, smiling and looking like there was nothing wrong with the world. He looked happy. He looked at peace.
In his excitement to join the other side, Eddie didn’t pay any attention to the pooling water at his feet or the voices he heard in the distance. He jumped, and just as he jumped the portal to Heaven disappeared, and Eddie started a long free fall into the black abyss beneath him.
Now, Eddie knows it was only a day of falling, but it felt like years. When he had first fallen through the floor, he let out a surprised shout that now echoed all around him, growing louder in volume while he continuously felt wind rushing against his back, even though he was positive he wasn’t actually moving.
In the hours of his fall back to Earth, there were a handful of major events that occurred which affected much of the near future Eddie was going to deal with upon returning to his body. The first being Lucas, Nancy, and Max had to race back to the church. They thought they defeated Vecna just for the ground to split open and the chimes of a clock to fill the air. They raced on their bikes, dodging vines and cracked chunks of the Earth. Nancy was arguably the most urgent. She would’ve stayed behind at the Creel house had the building been stable enough to get to a gate without dying in the process. That and, as much as she was worried about Robin, she wouldn’t dare leave the kids to fend for themselves with all hell literally breaking loose.
They were about halfway to the church just as the gates had, somehow, began shrinking back. They were sealing as if they had never opened, and the sigh of relief from each friend was interrupted by a sense of urgency. If the new gates were closing, would the old gates do the same? They went twice as fast, with Lucas, being the most athletic, going far ahead of the pack with a shouted promise to wait for them by the gate.
Lucas was not the smartest kid in his friend group. While he was in the same advanced classes, he didn’t have a real passion for school like his friends. He loved science and reading, was good at math, and was lucky enough to have a mom who spoke French and could help him with that homework. None of that means he was a genius like Dustin or clever like Max. He was smart, and he was clever, but he wasn’t like his friends. His friends listened to their heads; Lucas listened to his heart. He didn’t know much, but he knew how to love, and he did so with everything he had.
He loved fantasy. He loved dnd. He loved his friends. He loved playing sports, even if basketball wasn’t equally loved by his friends. He loved doing what he loved, and he loved how happy it made him. Maybe that’s why he was so close with Steve. They had the same, almost naïve sense of optimism throughout everything that happened in their lives. They stayed true to their hearts even when everyone around them sneered and scolded. Maybe that’s why he was so similar to Steve. They both stayed optimistic, and they both got hurt again and again.
Lucas was not the smartest kid in his friend group; he never learned when to stop being so stupidly optimistic. So naive to think that nothing would go wrong. That everything would be alright…
He didn’t spot Eddie’s body at first. The gray mass blended in so well with the scattered corpses of the demobats, so he biked right next to it. The boy went as far as to even peak his head inside of the church while calling Eddie’s name, but no answer came. His smile, which he’d been wearing since the moment the gates began to close, faltered. He searched through the pews, looking out for any sign of Eddie. He walked back outside to find his guitar sitting next to his amps and set up. He swung the Warlock across his shoulders, and it’s when his back straightened up that he finally realized what the large, dark mass was.
Lucas had never seen so much blood in his life. It soaked deep into the soil, staining what was grey into a red so dark it was almost black. Still, Lucas fell to his knees, and the cold, wet liquid seeped into the material of his pants. “Fuck…” Lucas stuttered and looked around. Max and Nancy were still far behind, so Lucas searched his brain for their PE class’s CPR lesson. He always hated the Bee Gees, but he began singing Stayin’ Alive beneath his breath, as he ripped through what was left of the shirt the bats had eaten apart to expose Eddie’s chest. Lucas jumped back with a wince, as he saw just how ripped up Eddie’s torso and clavicle were. He could swear he could see pieces of Eddie’s ribs sticking out, but he ignored that in favor of finding some kind of untouched patch of skin and began performing CPR.
He may have not been the smartest in the group, but Lucas was not dumb. He was optimistic, though, and he thought… he stupidly thought that maybe it hadn’t been too long. Maybe Eddie was already so cold because of the state of the Upside Down. He heard the story from Will about Hopper bringing him back to life with CPR. Maybe, Lucas could do the same here. He could restart Eddie’s heart, and they’d have just enough time to rush him to the hospital. Everything would be fine.
It's so stupid, he knows. He doesn’t know why he’s so persistent in being happy all the time. Why he laughed at Steve’s funeral through his sobs or why he spent so long giving CPR to a man clearly out of blood, especially when each push stopped making small spurts splatter against Lucas’s sleeves. With all he’d been through, he shouldn’t be so optimistic, but it was the only way he knew how to survive a world like this.
When Will went missing, he was insistent on being realistic. He didn’t trust Eleven, and they had seen the boy’s body. He supposes that when Will came back, some of his mindset changed. Will came back from the dead; anything was possible, even happy endings in the worst of times. Eleven came back too, and they defeated the demodogs and Billy Hargrove. Max, who was someone Lucas didn’t even think would bother talking to him, actually danced with him and kissed him all in the same night! She became his girlfriend and, even if they had rough patches, she liked him! She liked him despite his flaws and nerdiness. She liked him despite her brother and stepfather hating his guts. Surely, all of this would mean something, right? Surely, this meant the world was, overall, good?
Steve was the first person Lucas truly lost, and he stayed optimistic. He stayed optimistic because no one else would. Everyone else was staring at Steve’s grave with some form of hatred or sadness, and Lucas wouldn’t survive if he did that! He’d lost a brother, and he wasn’t about to stop living too. Steve wouldn’t want that. So, he kept on pushing. He worked hard and he got on the varsity basketball team. He stayed true to himself and joined Hellfire. He got closer with his sister and continued being the best guy he could be to Max. He did it all because Lucas wouldn’t survive otherwise. He had to stay happy. He couldn’t just roll over and give up!
He couldn’t end up like Steve.
Steve, who Lucas is just like. Steve, who Lucas matches with their twin optimistic outlooks and permanent smiles. Steve, who let himself die because he realized he couldn’t do it anymore. He couldn’t pretend to be happy. So, Lucas has to be happy. He has to be optimistic, and he has to believe happy endings can come out of the worst of times. He can’t give up like Steve did!
Even then, Steve came back, right? Even if he was a ghost, Steve was back, and he got his happy ending, which means Eddie could too. Lucas wouldn’t be happy for nothing; he was going to bring Eddie back. He was going to get them their happy ending. He—
“Lucas…” Nancy’s hand grabbed the boy’s shoulder. He didn’t know how long he had been giving Eddie’s corpse CPR, but he knew by the strain his shoulders and arms that it had been a while. “Lucas, he’s—”
“No!” Lucas paused his movements to push Nancy’s arms away, “No, I can do this! I can do this! I’ve almost got him. He’s going to be okay!” He was crying, and he didn’t understand why. Why would he be crying when Eddie was going to be okay? Eddie was going to be fine. They’d all be fine. The cracks were closing. Vecna was gone (in every sense of the word). They won. “You’re going to be okay, Eddie!” Something cracked beneath his hands just as someone shouted his name.
Max grabbed his shoulder, and when he tried to push her away, she grabbed his other hand. He sobbed, as she crouched to his level. “We need to go, Lucas.” Her voice was gentle and unbreaking, even as tears streamed down her face.
“No, no—”
“He’s gone.” She grabbed his face when he tried to turn away, “Lucas, he’s gone.” Max’s eyes were the prettiest eyes Lucas had ever seen. He would get lost in them often, imagining he was looking at the ocean instead of her irises. In this moment, they looked so sad, so desperate, and so true that there was no doubt in his mind. She was telling the truth. Eddie was gone, and there was nothing he could do to bring him back.
Sparing a moment to grab Eddie’s pick necklace and one of his rings, the three kids ran towards the gate, relieved albeit annoyed that the small one from Patrick’s death remained open. They left behind Eddie’s body, and Lucas left behind his stupid optimism.
It was a day later that Eddie landed back in his body. He opened his eyes just as the chunk of flesh missing from his cheek healed like it never was there. He looked down at his tattered clothes to find untouched skin beneath. He sat up with a groan, and he looked around with a gasp.
The Upside Down was covered in ruin. The church behind him was almost completely destroyed, with a large line running through it. The gates. Vecna. “No…”
“There you are…” A voice hissed, and Eddie didn’t have to look to tell who it was. He scrambled to his feet, hissing when his sore muscles ached from the movement. Vecna was standing a few feet away from him, holding his side with his one good arm, as his left arm was dangling, dripping with black blood. “I was wondering when you’d wake up.”
“You…” Eddie snarled. He raised his hands, and Vecna actually flinched. Eddie knew he was running on a low battery with Steve still in the afterlife, but he wasn’t weak. It was like there was a locked door in the back of his mind, and dying was the key to getting it open. While his knowledge of his powers remained at the same level, there was a different charge. Dying connected him to a new source of power. The afterlife. Souls. The stars. The cosmos. This must’ve been what Vecna told him about; dying must have been what Vecna was waiting for to get Eddie to reach his full potential. Still, even with a supposed full potential, Eddie had just been dead, and despite having no part in coming back from the afterlife, he did just heal his wounds. If he wanted to actually fight, he’d have to gain energy back. Vecna knew this just as he knew of Eddie unlocking access to power.
“I told you that you had so much potential, Eddie.” He smiled before flicking a hand. A demobat, twitching but still alive, slide across the ground over to the psychic’s feet, “Go on…” he urged, “Heal more than just your body.”
The demobat’s soul trailed off its twitching body to the tips of Eddie’s fingers. It was never a good idea to listen to anything Henry said, but he’d need this if he had any chance of fighting Vecna. Limitless potential or not, this was still the villain’s domain, and most of Eddie’s sources of power—the sun, the Earth, and electricity—were out of reach with only one small gate open far behind him. He’d have to be closer. “Are you really this arrogant as to let me gain all this power? I’ll kill you.” Eddie turned the hand not absorbing power, and more demobats came his way. These were stronger; they flapped helplessly in the air, as Eddie carried them over to absorb their power as well.
“Hm, you say this,” Henry smiled, “but you won’t.”
“And what would ever make you say that?”
“Because all the power in the world is nothing without the knowledge to use it.” he pressed his good hand to his heart, exposing the burn mark it had originally been covering, “You need someone to teach you. To use you properly.”
“I’ll kill you like the villain you are—"
“And if I said you could bring back Steve?” Eddie shut his mouth, eyes squinting. Henry chuckled, “See, I knew that would gain your interest…” he tilted his head, “Promise not to kill me, to let me help you, and I’ll tell you how to bring him back.”
“You’re bluffing.” A few bats fell dead, and Eddie felt fire in his veins.
“Am I?” Vecna put his hand back on his wound, “I brought you back, didn’t I?” he shook his head, “I would’ve brought Steve back too, but I’m too weak.”
“I…” Eddie shook his head, “Steve wouldn’t want that. He… he’s at peace, I saw him.”
“Is he, now?” Vecna took a step forward, and Eddie raised a hand towards him, forgetting about absorbing power. He had enough. “Months in the veil, watching his friends on the sidelines, torturous existence on his part… wouldn’t you want to give him a second chance? Wouldn’t you want him by your side again?” He lowered his voice, “Doesn’t Steven deserve to live?”
Eddie clenched and unclenched his jaw, “And you? What’s in it for you?”
“You heal me…” Vecna nodded, “Heal me, and help me take a new victim and reopen the gates.” Eddie could sense one still open in the church behind him, so
“You must think I’m insane if I’m going to agree to do that…” Eddie turned his hand into a fist, and Vecna raised into the air, “Now, are you going to let me send you to hell where you belong?” Vecna choked, gargled on blood, then let out a loud laugh.
“Oh, Eddie,” he chortled, “so powerful yet so mistaken. So foolish… so brash…” Eddie’s eyes widened, as his hand opened against his will. He looked up to see Vecna’s hand raised in his direction, “The souls of this land don’t belong to you…” Henry explained, as he was carefully lowered to the ground, “You take the souls of my pets, and you become one.” It was Eddie’s turn to be raised in the air, and he fought helplessly against invisible binds. “Now, I’ll give you your Steve as I promised. We need him. Without him, infinity is just out of reach for you. Once that’s done though, you and I are going to have a bit of fun.”
Eddie’s vision began to fog around the edges, “N—No…” he stuttered, as he felt Vecna’s claws sink deep into his mind, taking control. He felt something seep inside. A soul too powerful to absorb. Something strong… something possessive.
“True, infinite power, Eddie…” Vecna hummed in his mind, “Let’s use it properly this time.”