MELANCHOLY [S.T. B. Hargrove]

56

"So, should we even try to ask?" Nancy asks with a grin.

I bump my arm into hers. "Shut up."

Robin chuckles. "And here I thought we were badass just for jumping in the water after Steve."

I glance behind us. Billy, Steve, and Eddie were a bit behind- all three in their own conversation.

"It's weird seeing them talk," I take note of Steve and Billy.

"Weirder than the second dimension we're in?" Robin asks.

"A lot weirder."

Nancy laughs next. "How'd you put two and two together?"

"It's weird, honestly. All year I've felt this like.. tug-of-war. Like my insides were trying to tell me something or bring me somewhere."

"Usually I just take a nervous poop," Robin comments.

I snicker at the remark and step over a vine.

"I kept hearing his voice. Even before the Vecna curse. Weird things were happening with lights, my car, and just.. my surroundings, I guess?"

"Like you were being haunted?" Nancy clarifies.

"Kind of, yeah. But, it was still like they were messages and signs."

"Like Joyce and the Christmas lights," Nancy recalls.

I nod at the reference- I'd been filled in on those stories through the years.

"And then Vecna kept saying really weird things like how I'd be.." I pause.

"Rocky?" Robin asks.

The vulnerability was still new.

I was used to showing those sides to Billy. Then, he was gone.

Steve, Nancy, and Robin were my safe place, too. I was okay as long as I was with them.

"He said that after he killed me, I'd be alone again. It confused me because.. if that were true, I would've been with him, you know? So I started questioning it and decided to take the dive through the gate."

"How'd you find him?" Nancy wonders.

"You remember the source?"

Nancy giggles softly. "Tight jeans."

"Shut up!" I gasp, lightly shoving her shoulder.

Nancy throws her head back and laughs louder.

"God, you're the worst," I complain as a blush rises up my neck.

"I don't even want to know," Robin makes a face.

Nancy nudges her shoulder into mine.

"Anyway.. I went there. All the time I was in here- the Hargrove's old house, the trailer park, and everything.. Vecna didn't show up until I made it to the source."

"He was trying to get you away from it," Nancy figures.

"That's what I thought, too."

"And you found Billy," Robin says with a soft grin.

"He told me that he stacked some tires at the door to keep the bats, demodogs, and Mind Flayer away. But, the Mind Flayer went into that shadow shit and got in."

"Gross," Robin notes.

"It turned into a clone of him. Then, it left and locked him in the basement. He's been surviving on food that was down there since then. It was like.. gross. Molding and rotting."