Chapter Text
“Use me as bait.” Max says resolutely, crossing her arms over her chest in front of the crowd assembled in the back of the camper van. “I’ll ditch Kate Bush for a bit and try to lure Vecna back in. He’ll possess me or whatever. I’ll be ready this time and find a happy memory to escape from him. While I’m doing that, his body will be vulnerable in the Upside Down. You guys can sneak into the Murder House and catch him unaware.”
“No,” Steve and Lucas say at the same time. They look at each other.
“I won’t lose you again,” Lucas says quietly to Max, hands clenched in his lap.
“I’ve fought him before. I can do it again. We don’t have a choice.” Max lifts her chin, resolved.
“She’s right.” Robin adds. “He only needs one more kill.”
“Fuck,” Steve grits out. He knows they’re right, but his protective instinct is clearly at odds with reality.
“We’re going to have to distract the swarm of demobats,” Dustin speaks up. “Get them away from the Murder House.” He looks up at Eddie thoughtfully.
“What?”
“You play the guitar.”
“Yeah…” Eddie says, cocking his head at Dustin quizzically.
“So you have amps.” Dustin finishes.
“Not really sure where you’re going with this, but yes. I have an amp.”
“I have an idea.”
“That is a terrible fucking idea,” Steve groans, kneading his forehead with the palms of his hands. The kids are busy putting together improvised weapons with Robin and Nancy and they’re sitting on the steps of the camper van, watching.
“This whole fuckin’ thing is a Hail Mary at best,” Eddie offers Steve a cigarette. Steve stares down at it and exhales a sigh. He takes the cigarette. Eddie flicks his lighter to life and Steve takes a drag.
“I hate this,” Steve blows smoke downward, trying not to get it in Eddie’s face.
“Yeah,” Eddie nods. “I mean, shit. Yeah.”
“These are basically my kids,” Steve says with an unsettling gravitas.
“I get that,” Eddie nods.
“Of course you do,” Steve laughs without mirth. “You probably get it the best out of anyone here. You wouldn’t create ridiculous fantasy worlds for them if you didn’t love the little shits.”
Eddie is silent for a long moment.
“Yeah,” He agrees. “Can I tell you something, Harrington?”
“Sure,” Steve ashes his cigarette. “Not like anything you have to say could possibly shock me at this point.”
“Considering we’ve been in an alternate dimension in the past 24 hours, I’d have to agree with you on that.” Eddie chuckles, but grows serious again. “Sometimes, in Hellfire sessions, I pad my rolls a little.”
“English, please.” Steve shoots him a disparaging look, the quirk of the corner of his mouth a dead giveaway for his underlying amusement.
“Asshole. I fudge the numbers is what I mean. I make the bosses hard enough to really put these guys through it and force them to think on their feet, but that means sometimes they get overpowered. Sometimes it’s the luck of the dice and sometimes it’s the lingering effects of injury or a spell. But when that happens and I roll too good for damage–”
“You dial it back a little so it doesn’t hit hard enough to wipe ‘em out. And there’s no way to dial back a real life threat.” Steve looks at him. Really looks at him. His brown eyes are dark and serious, cigarette forgotten between his fingers.
“I think you’re right.” Eddie says with a practiced blankness in his expression that doesn't quite match the fear in his eyes. “I think we understand each other a little too well.”
“Nobody deviates from the plan, no matter what.” Nancy says. The group nods in agreement, a grim silence falling over them. Eddie glances around the circle - they all look more than a little haunted.
It feels like they’ve barely caught their breath before they’re back in the Upside Down, armed with their spoils from WarZone. With curt nods to each other, Eddie and Dustin split from Nancy, Steve, and Robin. They travel just far enough that they can barely see Eddie’s trailer in the miserable gloom and set down what they’re carrying. Eddie finds an outdoor power outlet on one of the walls of a creepy, overgrown version of another trailer in the trailer park and sets to work.
“You’re sure this is the right audio jack,” Dustin asks as Eddie connects his cassette deck to his amp. Eddie doesn’t answer, merely demonstrates with a satisfying ‘click’ as the jack slides into place.
“What tape are you going with?” Dustin asks once Eddie flicks the knob on his amp to full volume.
“Only one of the greatest songs of all time,” Eddie grins at Dustin and pulls the taped single out of his jacket pocket. Master of Puppets by Metallica. Dustin nods in approval. Eddie flips the tape hatch open and clicks the cassette into place.
“When I press rewind, we run back to the trailer as fast as we can.” Eddie explains. “Once it gets to the beginning of the tape, the rewind’ll stop and the sweet, sweet music will start.”
“What if we don’t make it to the trailer by the time the music starts?” Dustin asks nervously.
“Let’s not find out.” Eddie cranks the volume knob up on the cassette deck, checks the volume knob on his amp, and hits rewind. He bodily hauls Dustin to his feet, grabs his hand, and they run like hell.
As they’re climbing the makeshift sheet-rope back into the real world (the Right-side Up? Eddie thinks for a delirious second as gravity shifts him into the warmth of normal Hawkins), they hear the tell-tale crash of drums and beginning of the chugging intro riff in the distance.
“The swarm is leaving,” Steve breathes into the partner walkie talkie to the one shoved in Dustin’s sweatshirt pocket. “We’re going into the Murder House.”
A few minutes later, the world starts coming apart at the seams. Eddie and Dustin hear the hole in the ceiling widen before they see it happen. Once they get a look at the harsh orange cracks spreading out from the gate, they fucking book it. Dustin clambers onto his bike. Eddie slings his guitar over his back with its strap and stands on the bike pegs in the back wheel as Dustin rips off, pedaling as hard as he can.
The next few days happen in a way that’s both dizzyingly fast and sickeningly slow.
The gate rifts seem to be slowly decomposing the real world. Max is in a coma. Lucas won’t leave her side. Dustin and Steve and Robin go to volunteer for “Earthquake Relief.” Dustin tells Eddie, who's hiding out in Steve's coach house above the garage, that he’s still wanted for murder but now he’s missing, presumed dead, and that his Uncle Wayne knows he’s okay. Ash starts raining from the sky. The worst fucking thunderstorm Eddie has ever seen positively batters Hawkins. An unconscious young girl named El, or Jane, or… Eleven? Is carried into the Harringtons’ house by a bloody, grimy Steve. She’s bleeding from every orifice and Steve places her gently into his bathtub and tenderly wipes the blood from her face. He whirls around and immediately shouts at Eddie to get every cold thing out of his freezer and bring them to him. Nancy and Robin, equally grimy, show up with huge gas station bags of ice and Eddie helps them lug the bags up the stairs and pour them on the girl. She wakes up with a start in her ice bath and reaches out for Mike Wheeler, who is somehow here too, and says he’s here.
No one needs to ask who.
The sheer terror that eclipses them as they step outside in Real Hawkins and see the swirling cloud of demobats and the army of demodogs is something Eddie won’t forget in a hurry. He and Nancy wield sawed-off shotguns, Robin her Molotovs and a Steve’s Special baseball bat chock full of nails and barbed wire. Dustin still holds his nail shield from their trip into the Upside Down. They fight for what feels like hours but is in reality only a few minutes as Eleven presses her hands to the ground and tries her hardest, but fails to close the rifts.
The demobats grab Eddie by the throat before Robin absolutely clobbers them with her nail bat and a demodog bites Nancy in the leg. Adrenaline alone keeps the small crowd standing, a few of them swinging gasoline-soaked makeshift torches.
Joyce Byers’ car comes to a screeching halt next to the group and out tumble Jim fuckin’ Hopper, Joyce herself, Lucas, and Jonathan carrying an unconscious Will.
“Everybody get over here!” Jim Hopper booms. They all race to Eleven’s side. Jim empties one of the two cans of gasoline he’s carrying in a circle around the group. He lights a match and they’re surrounded by a protective circle of fire. Eddie can see the demodogs snapping and snarling outside the fire, but they're unwilling to come any closer.
Jonathan lays Will down next to El where she sits panting and crying, hands still pressed to the asphalt of the street.
“Will used himself as bait,” Jonathan explains as Hopper straps on what appears to be a flamethrower and readies himself to fend off the demobats, should they strike from the air.
“NO!” the word rips itself from Mike Wheeler’s throat. He falls to his knees and gathers Will into his arms. Will’s eyes are glossy and white - he’s fully in Vecna’s thrall.
“Again,” Eleven says raggedly. “With friends. I can do it with friends.”
“Okay,” Steve says. The fire around them starts to ebb and Joyce works to renew the gasoline. “What do you need?”
Eleven takes Will’s hand. She smiles up at Steve through her tears.
“Thank you.”
“For what, kiddo?”
“Thank you all.” Eleven takes a deep, shaky breath.
“For what?” Mike practically yells, panicked.
“For being my friends. For being my family.”
“Eleven, what are you-” Joyce begins to ask, but Eleven puts her hand to the ground again and the ground rumbles ominously. Eleven groans and the rift across the street begins to glow white.
“You’re not alone,” Steve claps his hand on her shoulder. “You don’t ever have to be alone.” Eddie immediately follows suit, placing his hand on Eleven’s back. Dustin, Lucas, Joyce, Mike, Hopper, Jonathan, Nancy, then Robin lay their hands on Eleven. She screams and blood drips from her mouth onto the pavement.
The demobat swarm is the first thing to react - almost as if there’s a strong wind pushing them back from the group of people huddled together in their ring of fire. The gate rift hums with the white light and sucks the demobats in despite their struggles against the invisible current. The demodogs are next, clawing at the ground to prevent the seemingly gravitational pull dragging them back into the Upside Down.
Will’s body stiffens and begins to float off of Mike’s lap. Mike holds him down with all his strength. It looks like it might not be enough as Will’s eyes begin to leak tears of blood.
"Darling, you got to let me know,” Jonathan croaks out weakly, raising his head. The Clash? At a time like this? Eddie stares at him, confused. “Should I stay or should I go? If you say that you are mine, I'll be here 'til the end of time,' ' As he sings, Jonathan takes the hand not on Eleven’s back and puts it on Will’s head. “So you got to let me know - should I stay or should I go?”
As though he can hear him - can he hear him? - Will reaches his hand straight out in front of him and everyone stares, filled with dread. He closes his hand around something in another dimension. Blood suddenly coats his hand in red, soaking down his arm, as a blackened, charred, vaguely human-looking heart appears in his hand. Will’s eyes uncloud in the same instant that everything around them flickers and resets.
There are no more rifts splitting the asphalt. No more red storm clouds. There’s no more ash drifting through the air. No evidence whatsoever of any property damage. There is only a beautiful Hawkins spring sunset as the circle of flames around the group in Steve’s driveway puts itself out.
“The heart,” Mike chokes out. Will looks up at him with raw, wild hope, the alien organ still dripping blood down his arm. “You’re the heart.”
Eleven slumps forward. Eddie catches her.
“Hey, hey kid. I got you.” She’s unconscious, bloody around the eyes, nose, mouth, and yep, ears too.
Hopper throws the flamethrower aside and scoops Eleven out of Eddie’s grasp. He picks her up like she weighs nothing and presses an ear to her chest. Everyone is still for a horrible, sick moment.
“She’s alive.” Hopper breaks out in a grin.