brutal ━ mike wheeler

thirteen. lover's lake

THIRTEEN━━━━
LOVER'S LAKE

stranger things;
season 4 ep 6

ADRIAN KEPT HIS GAZE focused on his hands, which were in his lap. He had never been so interested in them before. However, he was trying desperately to ignore the amount of eyes looking at him.

He was embarrassed.

Sure, he knew he didn't really have anything to be embarrassed about, but these people had all just seen him cry like a baby when his whole life he hardly cried at all. It made him nervous simply for the fact that he was worried they would see him different.

A whole night had passed since it had happened, and the sun was slowly starting to rise. Everyone was split up between two cars, half of them in Nancy's car and half in Steve's. He was in Nancy's car, trying to ignore the worried gaze she kept sending him from the rearview mirror. Mike was beside him, and Robin was in the passenger seat.

Mike's hand was hovering near his, but he never grabbed his hand, knowing that the others could see them.

He didn't dare to look at any of them. He didn't want to get reminded that they had all seen him at his lowest. He knew that their fearless image of him was now shattered. He couldn't stand that.

Adrian was grateful that Nancy had decided to turn on the radio, some upbeat song that he had never heard of playing. "Not to be a wimp, but can I sit in the car for this visit? 'Cause this is gonna totally and royally suck." Robin asked Nancy as they made a curve down the road, heading toward Rick's house. "It'll be fine."

Adrian had gathered that the others had found out exactly where Vecna was while he was having his episode, and that had also further explained to him why he had felt so bad stepping into the house in the first place. "I just can't stand to see those doe eyes of Eddie's break again." Adrian raised an amused eyebrow at that. He truly enjoyed her rants. "I really, really can't."

"Why don't we give it a trial run. Adrian, you pretend to be Eddie." Adrian straightened himself up and prepared to act his heart out, trying to pretend that he wasn't so shaken up. "'Hey, Eddie! Good news first this time. We got you some Dustin-approved junk food and that six-pack you requested. Oh, yeah, and we found Vecna. Only the bad news is that he's in that other, darker, much scarier dimension, that we told you about and the gate's closed, so we have no way of getting to him. Like he's entirely shut off to us, so basically, you're screwed.'"

Adrian felt his mouth slowly fall open as Robin continued to rant on and on about it, wondering when he was going to get a chance to act his heart out. "'And, no, I know that you were already screwed, but now you're like doubly, triply screwed.'" She went silent and slowly turned to look at Adrian, wondering what he, as Eddie, would say in response.

Adrian finally looked up.

He blinked once. Then twice. His mouth opened, closed, then he let out a long, tired breath through his nose. He cleared his throat. "Well, when you put it like that, I think he would say something along the lines of, 'Love the snacks. Really appreciate the emotional whiplash. But if the plan is 'Vecna is unreachable and I'm doomed,' maybe... lead with the Doritos next time?'"

Mike snorted beside him before he could stop himself. Robin stared at him for half a second before she broke into a grin. "I can't believe you actually played along, usually it gets shot down." Adrian shrugged, eyes flicking back down to his hands, but there was the faintest smile tugging at his mouth.