"I swear, if I'm dying tonight because of you, I'm gonna haunt your ass so hard, Harrington!"
"Oh yeah?"
"Yeah! I'm gonna go full Poltergeist and shit!"
"Then bring it, Graveswood."
"Challenge accepted."
***
In which after years of suppressing their...
Oops! This image does not follow our content guidelines. To continue publishing, please remove it or upload a different image.
Chapter One-Hundred-And-Sixty-Eight: Bad And Worse News
(The Piggyback, Pt. 8)
***
It was agony waiting.
That was all Rowan could think as she sat in that goddamned hospital chair, waiting and waiting for news of Max from that room at the end of the corridor. Her eyes were trained on that door, on the nurses and doctors rushing in and out, trying to save Max, to keep her alive.
They had to. Rowan couldn't accept a world where Max Mayfield wasn't in it, where she... she...
Rowan blinked back tears, hands clasped together, dried blood—Eddie's blood, she was always going to have the blood of those she loved and failed on her hands—flaking away in her grip. Steve sat beside her, his arm never leaving her shoulders, supporting her as Rowan battled with her grief over Eddie and her fear for Max, her desperation for her to be alive. Around them, everyone else sat, silent, waiting just as much as Rowan was for news, just as afraid of it.
During that time, a nurse had finally noticed Dustin's favouring of his left leg, the bloodied bandage peeking out from Valerie's bandana on her neck and the equally blood-spotted bandage on Rowan's wrist, the purple rings around Rowan's, Steve's, Nancy's and Robin's necks. They'd received medical attention immediately after, where they'd also discovered the bites on Steve's sides when he winced—if Eddie had lived, if Rowan had just saved him, he and Steve would have matching scars—and treated them as best they could. The results had been the same—Dustin's leg was broken, he'd needed a splint for it and he'd be limping for at least a few weeks, the strangulation from the vines had left bruises on Rowan's, Steve's, Robin's, Valerie's and Nancy's necks and wrists, and the nurses had cleaned the bites, applied some medical cream that felt like a godsend to Rowan on them and redressed them. If there'd been any confusion on how the bites had been sealed up with burning, they didn't ask and left them be while going to the people who needed help more, leaving them in this agonising haze of waiting.
And between receiving medical treatment and in this purgatory of waiting, Rowan and Leo had gone into a tiny alcove, where she held Leo as he finally let out all his grief, holding her tight as he sobbed into her shoulder, as Rowan shed her own silent tears. The people who, outside of Wayne, had loved Eddie the most, and grieved him together now.
When they pulled back, Rowan gave the boar's head ring to Leo and whispered, "He'd... he'd want you to have this. To remember him, as who he was, as a hero. Not... not this villain they'll say he was."
Leo had only nodded, grief shadowing his face, as he clutched the ring tightly, as Rowan held hers, their pieces of Eddie.
They'd both agreed then and there that Rowan should have his battle vest, while Leo should have his guitar. The items Eddie treasured the most, safely in the hands of the two people he loved the most, who would keep them cared for, would cherish them and remember Eddie by them and these rings.
