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redamancy 1

When Eddie Munson first lays eyes on Will Byers, he thinks he might be dying.

Wouldn't that be hilarious? He asks himself this as he floats on the pain medication keeping the worst of the agony coursing through his veins at bay, his vision blurry around the edges as he shakily pushes himself into a sitting position as small bodies spill into the room. You survive the Upside Down twice, you survive lich god-king Vecna twice, and you waste away in a fucking hospital bed because you can't survive Demobats twice.

He would have died the first time if he was in the Upside Down with anyone but Dustin, though, and he knows that. Recognizes he would have died on the spot if anyone but the most tenacious, stupidly bold omega he's ever known had been in there with him. Most people probably would have ran off without looking back, but Dustin doesn't.

Even in all of their sessions together, Dustin was never able to go on without looking back.

Truth be told, he never intended to nearly die that time. He wanted to buy time for Steve, for Nancy, and for Robin. He wanted to ensure they could sneak into where Vecna hovered in his near-comatose state and kill the bastard once and for all, and the fact he almost died in the process embarrassed him later on. Almost died, when Vecna barely took damage, and Max Mayfield ended up in a fucking coma because he couldn't even do that -

And now he might be dying. Maybe his body or his soul has simply given up the ghost and acknowledged his time on this planet has come to an end, and there will be no more of him. No more Dungeons and Dragons campaigns hastily scrawled into beaten-up notebooks that should contain his schoolwork. No more guitar, whether it be solos in a living breathing hellscape or just picked-apart ballads in the quiet of his bedroom. No more heaving guts and sweaty palms and the incessant, inevitable certainty that disaster is always just a step away and that they are all inexorably walking closer and closer to it each day.

Eddie's mind might have drifted toward some dark, dark places, but in his defense, the world was ending. And if this is the end, at least this time he could see it through to the very end and ensure the people he cares the most about are going to be okay.

"Holy shit." Dustin Henderson's voice cuts through the macabre run of his thoughts as Eddie takes a slow, shaky breath, his throat sore and his chest aching as it rises with the small movement. "You're awake. I thought you'd be out for weeks, man."

"C-can't take me out that easy- Oh shit." Eddie raises a shaky hand to his face, rubbing quivering fingers over the slight rise of stubble on his jaw, rubbing at his eyes to dispel the sudden bursts of black and white across his vision. Fuck, he hurts.

Hands dart out from either side of what Eddie realizes now is a hospital bed; Dustin's are the most familiar, both of them wrapping around his arm as if trying to support him. His face is slightly blurry in Eddie's vision, his features softened by the haze that seems to hang over Eddie's eyes like a veil of some sort. Like a transparent curtain or a cloud of smoke allowed to grow so thick in the air that he can almost taste it.

Or, shit, maybe the drugs are just that good that everything seems a little soft and fuzzy. "Hey, Henderson. What the hell happened? Did we finally win this time?"

"Oh, shut up. You know we won." Dustin looks up at him, and his eyes are like smoke, Eddie thinks. Pale blue with a cast of grey just like the lazy curls that drift off of the end of a cigarette when Eddie is really stressed out. "You remember that, don't you? You were still conscious when Vecna finally died, but maybe you've been out for too long."

No, Eddie remembers. Even with the pain and the blood loss and the certainty that the Grim Reaper was coming for him this time, he fought through the pain just so he could make sure Vecna was really and truly dead. Hard to argue with that when Eleven blasted him into dust, but it was important to make sure. If Eddie had died then, he wanted to go with no regrets and knowing that the future of Hellfire would still live on.