A few days later, once Eddie's rat army are awake and vampiric and confused, he takes twenty minutes to connect with each of them individually, trying to hold onto each mental link at the same time, a hive mind of his own. Once they seem willing to listen, the same connection built on trust and duty and friendship that he'd forged with Gandalf forged with them, as well, they take them to his old trailer.
"This is tripping me out." Vickie says, sounding extraordinarily stressed but still handling her first time seeing a gate with impressive calm.
"Are we really going to, like, just throw them through the ceiling?" Robin asks.
"This is the easiest gate to use." Nancy says. "We don't know enough about the cracks to know if they'll work exactly the same."
"This is going to work." Dustin says, bobbing rapidly up and down the way he does when he's excited. "I can feel it."
Eddie, who is finding it very difficult to focus on literally anything with the gate hanging above him, doesn't say anything at all. It's like it's whispering to him, again, the way it always does when he's near it, the heavy air pulling at his lungs like he's underwater and won't be able to breathe until he goes through, like an itch he desperately needs to scratch, like the ash is drifting through and surrounding him in a fine mist, sticking to his skin and making his senses sharper, his mind blurrier, his hunger fiercer.
Steve pokes his shoulder. "Eddie, you good?"
"Y-yeah. Peachy." He says, crouching down to where the rats are all sitting in a box, looking expectantly up at him. "Alright, guys, pep-talk time. Hawkins stands on the brink of destruction, the evil from above and below only growing, our fates in your little paws. The road must be trod, but it will be very hard. And neither strength nor wisdom will carry us far upon it. This quest may be attempted by the weak with as much hope as the strong. Yet it is oft the course of deeds that move the wheels of the world: Small paws do them because they must, while the eyes of the great are elsewhere."
Steve looks down at him. "...Are you quoting Lord of the Rings to them?"
"This is awesome." Dustin says, voice high-pitched.
"They get the sentiment even if they don't get the words!" Eddie says. He turns to address each of the rats in turn. "Okay, Frodo, Samwise, Merry, Pippin, Boromir, Aragorn, Legolas, and Gimli, go out and be the best spies you can be!
"Tell Boromir not to betray them all." Dustin whispers, really into the pep-talk.
Eddie nods, reaching down to pat a slightly meaner looking rat. "Boromir, try not to take after your namesake too much. There's no 'I' in 'team'. And..." He reaches down to give Gandalf a little stroke on the head, a lone white mouse in a sea of grey rats. "Gandalf the White, I trust you to lead this fellowship with the grace and wisdom of a thousand ages. Also, sorry that we're about to throw you all into nightmare land." He stands up, Gandalf in hands, and tosses him through.
Dustin cheers, immediately reaching down to toss Frodo through.
Everybody else stares at them for a long moment. "What are you guys waiting for?" Eddie asks. "Toss 'em through!"
Robin is grinning. "Has anyone ever told you that you two might be the geekiest people currently living on Earth?"
"All the time." Dustin says proudly, lifting up Samwise to toss him through next and telling him to look after Frodo.
Eddie flashes his teeth. "It's a badge I wear with pride."
Once the fellowship are all through, Eddie's links to them snap into focus, like even though he isn't physically in the Upside Down himself just the act of sending them through is enough to wake up the dormant parts of him, to pour sensation into the part of himself inextricably tied to the life there. He can feel their fear as they scurry over the mushy grass, careful to avoid the vines and trigger the hivemind. They're small and sneaky enough that they seem to be doing okay, each of them heading in different directions so that they can cover the most ground.
