"there must be some kind of way out of here"

[satanicpanics]

Who: Eddie & others
When: Post-event
Where: Solvunn, Horizon, Nocwich
What: Catch-all nonsense
Warnings: Will add if needed!

ꜱᴀɪᴅ ᴛʜᴇ ᴊᴏᴋᴇʀ ᴛᴏ ᴛʜᴇ ᴛʜɪᴇꜰ
"ᴛʜᴇʀᴇ'ꜱ ᴛᴏᴏ ᴍᴜᴄʜ ᴄᴏɴꜰᴜꜱɪᴏɴ
ɪ ᴄᴀɴ'ᴛ ɢᴇᴛ ɴᴏ ʀᴇʟɪᴇꜰ"

{Open and closed starters to follow! If you want something specific, find me at muttonchops or poultrylegs @ discord}

Comments

solvunn; OTA

[satanicpanics]

[ Eddie counts himself lucky. He can move on relatively easily, brush off everything that happened with a simple shrug of his shoulders—seemingly, at least. He’s not unaffected by any means. There are a few things that require his attention—the Henry thing, the Steve thing, the crushing loneliness he’d felt as friends slipped away, drifting further and further from the people he knows them as now. But at the end of the day, he can recognize himself in that reality, and that gives him an anchor to keep him grounded.

It helps to throw himself into other activities, even if they aren’t what he’d prefer to be doing with his time. Solvunn is a bit of a mess, with plenty of repairs needed after the storm. Locals don’t request help—they seem to recognize the toll the Summoned have all been through—but it feels wrong to leave them to their own devices, especially in Solvunn where they’re allowed to live free of charge.

So Eddie puts his fledgling handyman skills to use and does what he can around the commune. He’s not half as good with a hammer as he is with a guitar, but he gets the job done. ]

Hey—

[ Sorry, if you’re the closest person, he’s reeling you in. ]

Come hold this nail steady for me? I won’t hit you. Well—hopefully.

[ Look at the confidence in that smile! ]

[infiniteban]

Aw, don't worry if you do, these fingers have seen worse. [He wiggles them as if that's any indication. Thankfully no additional hands make themselves present to echo the wiggle.

Maybe he's getting some control over that additional ailment (he hasn't).

Most of Travis's work has been focused on the house of one of his host family's grandfather's, but he's trying to get around. He's a community-based guy. He likes being known for what he can provide. Even if it's kind of shoddy repair work, it's better than no repair work.

He holds the nail steady.]

[satanicpanics]

Well, you’ve still got all ten of them at least. Let’s try our best not to change that, ‘kay?

[ He grins a wide, toothy grin. It might normally be something that comes across as a little off-putting—like he’s going to purposefully try to hit Travis’s fingers, but for Eddie, it’s just another piece of the jester persona he’s built for himself. He wouldn’t hurt a fly. Purposefully, at least. ]

Alright, hold still. Like—really still.

[ He raises his eyebrows meaningfully. Like, seriously, don’t move, dude. He raises the hammer, aims carefully, and brings it down once. No fingers hit, that’s good, but he hesitates and it wasn’t quite enough force to drive the nail into the wood. He mumbles an apology and tries once more, and this time…yeah, he hits Travis’s thumb. ]

Shit! Sorry, dude. Are you okay?

[infiniteban]

[He's used to all types of people, for better or for worse. Maybe it's that small-town syndrome. You put a bunch of archetypes into a space and then shake, making the world's worst snowglobe.

He holds still under instruction by a kid much younger than him and too much hair.

It does not help them, and he yelps, jerking back.] Goddammit Fuck That Stings Fuck Shit Damn. [Wow he's died before he can handle a hammer!! He looks at the kid.] I thought I was bad at this but you kind of suck. I wouldn't want to see you with a firearm if you can't aim a hammer. [Those are two different things entirely, Travis.

Also there's no guns in Solvunn (unfortunately).] Third time's a charm? [He only looks skeptical at Eddie, so at least he's not angry.]

nocwich; OTA

[satanicpanics]

[ It’s a strange thing, to return home with hundreds of years of memories of a time that never was. It sort of turns your memories into soup—it’s difficult to pick out what’s true and what’s false, what’s important and what’s worth disposing of. Eddie isn’t returning home with a whole lot of shame, but he is returning home with a handful of worries and with a hell of a lot of connections he didn’t have before.

At least Nocwich is open again for that exact purpose. Eddie has always liked it here, but he admittedly feels a bit strange now, paranoid, like the werewolves are suddenly going to start to dislike him for the sick fangs he came back with, but they’re just aesthetic. It’s not like he came back as an actual vampire.

He’s settled himself down at the edge of the square, guitar in hand, not actually performing so much as plucking out a few idle tunes and watching as people pass. When he sees a face he knows, a face he’s seen only in a false reality, he calls out to them: ]

Hey—hey! I know you, don’t I?

[ Or maybe it’s someone he already knew before. In which case he hop right up to his feet and hurries to fall in step with them, grinning wide. ]

Well, look who it is. Long time no see.

[spiritread]

[ It's not like Jinora is completely over everything or anything... She's found herself with more worries than she knows what to do with. Yet, in natural airbender mentality she can face it with a what's done is done (and perhaps, she tells herself, she needs a way home more). ]

[ That's a longer puzzle to solve and one she won't solve in a day. And though memory tells her she visited all over Abraxas it feels surreal. Lived in but not and so when the ability to leave Throne comes up for the first time comes she goes... ]

[ A strange place, but not in a bad way. She finds the day exploring what she can, meeting people and asking questions, and doing chores for what little things she might need. It feels normal - right. She hears the music but it's the voice hailing out that stops her from carrying her bundled task. ]

[ Blinking owlishly at him in confusion - a "who me?" kind of expression as she furrows her brows as recognition dawns. ]

Um... I think that depends on how you look at it?

[ She answers, the statement sounding more like a question before adding in the same perplexity: ] Yes?

[satanicpanics]

But the question is--

[ He puts the guitar to the side and leaps to his feet so suddenly that it startles an innocent passer-by. ]

How do I know you?

[ It’s a question more for himself than it is for her, because while some part of him knows he’s met Jinora before, he can’t quite dredge up the memories to accompany it. He approaches her with narrowed eyes and walks a wide circle around her, trying to work it out.

Just give him a minute, he’s almost got it— ]

No way.

[ There it is. He grins as it dawns on him. ]

You do actually exist! Holy shit.

[spiritread]

[ What do you do when some weird hairy guy is eyeing you up and down? ]

[ Well, other people might leave or tell him to knock it off. Jinora doesn't - though the confusion flickers to surprise and she takes a step back that's more of a... It's more like the wind gives her a solid good leap back like a frazezled cat. ]

I — yes?

[ She repeats, confused. ]

Why wouldn't I exist?

[rookvision]

[Jacob turns quickly on his heel when he hears a familiar voice, surprised to hear this one all the way out here. He remembers a pub crawl with this fellow, trying to find a song that had stuck in his head even after eight centuries, and now his eyes go wide on seeing him.]

Bloody hell—and I know you! [Bolting over now to Eddie quick as a flash. The shadows don't follow him around and speed him along, he's just naturally fast, if also a little loud.] I remember you, clear enough—do you remember me?

[satanicpanics]

Hell yeah, I remember you!

[ Jacob is so fast that Eddie barely gets a moment to take in his face, but it doesn’t matter. A simple exchange of words is all it takes to fully spark his memory, and Eddie is leaping to his feet, grinning ear to ear.

One thing is for sure—Eddie Munson knows who he is, and that’s apparently not changing anytime soon. He’s the same exact person he was eight centuries in the future, barring the fact that he’s lacking a set of wings and claws. It’s strange to have memories of a time that never was, but Eddie still looks upon them fondly, including his pub crawl with Jacob. Even if, as far as he remembers, they never did work out his song. ]

It was, uh…Jacob, right? I'd say long time no see, but...you know, I'm not totally sure if that counts or not.

[rookvision]

Jacob Frye! And you're—Eddie, have I got that right?

[It's a little weird seeing him without the wings and claws, but he supposes it might be weird for Eddie seeing him without the feathers and with normal human eyes. He smiles brightly at him, and reaches out to clap him on the back.]

I know where the song stuck in my head's from—it's from London. Little ballad I heard in the pubs, so we weren't too far off. [Although he won't tell Eddie that it's about a murder that Jacob himself committed.] It counts if you think it counts. Did you ever figure out what that melody you were thinking of was from?

[areou]

( nocwich is, honestly, a nice change of pace from all the military bullshit of the free cities, even if the military bullshit is what she literally signed up for and has been keeping her mind off of ... other, dumber bullshit for the time being. standard issue coping mechanism for children of the war god: beat something up until there isn't a single thought left in your head. it's been going swell. (it has not been going swell.)

so, naturally, she jumped at the chance to stretch her legs outside the free cities and away from her family, which isn't something she was ever allowed to do at camp unless she was given a quest or some secret mission. (and at college, well, there's almost too much freedom it's overwhelming. what do you mean you can just go wherever you want whenever you want?) not that she has any real idea what she wants to do. maybe she's just scouting the place out first. if she thinks about it like a quest, there's no reason to feel out of place. she's obviously looking for —

a familiar voice, and then a familiar face when she twists around, barking out a laugh. )

Well, if it isn't the King Nerd himself. ( of course she remembers him. and the guitar, too. they'd spent — well, no, they hadn't, not really, but she remembers spending hours upon hours listening to eddie plucking away at half-remembered songs and regaling her with way too many dissertation-length lessons about heavy metal. ) Are you and that guitar attached at the hip?

[satanicpanics]

Yeah, that’s me. His Majesty, at your service.

[ Eddie isn’t a king so much as he’s a court jester, leaping to his feet to drop into a theatrical bow, grinning broadly as he does. He definitely remembers Clarisse—if you can even call it remembering. None of what they went through actually happened, did it? It’s become so difficult to figure out how to even approach the entire thing, and Eddie falls into the spiral of anxiety if he allows himself to overthink it too much. All that really matters is he knows who she is and recognizes her from that shared 800-year experience. He’s not so sure he ever got her to understand his opinion on the Black Sabbath frontmen debate, though—Ozzy is the better frontman, but Dio is more of a powerhouse, it’s all very simple. Or maybe she just didn’t care, but who wouldn’t care?

He tilts his head when she brings up the guitar, peeks down at it in his hands, and glances back up at her like she’s insane. ]

What? This one? Absolutely not. Nope, my one true love’s all locked up in the Horizon again.

[ He rolls his eyes, because it really is a big pain. If he ever does get godly powers, the first thing he’s doing is making that guitar a reality outside of the Horizon. ]

But this one? Her modest younger sister. Not really a looker, but…she’s got a decent enough sound.

[ He slaps the body of the acoustic in his hands, a humble instrument that pales in comparison to the sleek electric he’d been toting around in 800-Years-World, but still clearly well-loved. Wanda made it for him on his first day in Abraxas, and he’s rarely been seen without it since. ]

[areou]

( demigods, unfortunately, are all too familiar with dreams-that-aren't-really-dreams. story of their fucking lives, really. how would you like a heaping helping of nightmares that are also actually prophetic visions or unsettling eavesdropping on monsters that want to tear you apart? yeah, it's pretty much every day ending in y. she'd almost thought they might have gotten a reprieve from it here — the nightmares, of course, never go away, but they've just been regular nightmares, which is almost an improvement — until the singularity or whatever the fuck decided to knock them all out for three weeks and play out some bullshit extended edition cinematic vision shitshow.

she's still mad about it, even if some of the things that happened-but-not-really weren't so bad. she can't think about it too hard or she'll want to start throwing things. so she ignores it mostly, unless she's confronted directly. not that she'd consider eddie recognizing her a confrontation. then again, she could make it a confrontation — she could make anything a confrontation — but, thankfully, eddie represents part of those 800 years that don't actively make her want to scream. she wonders if this is what piper felt like knowing hera and the mist fucked with her head, planted memories that weren't memories, made her feel things that may or may not have been real.

no, fuck that. she's not going there right now.

she snorts, rolling her eyes at his theatrics. ares almighty, it's like theater night at camp. eddie would fit right in with the — well, one dionysus kid left. )

Uh huh. ( she'll just take his word on ... all of that. she wouldn't know the first thing about guitars, and was definitely not paying attention if he ever tried to explain the difference between acoustic and electric. she gestures at the one in his hand, expectantly almost. he'd been playing or attempting to play something before she showed up. she is obviously going to assume the funniest option, which is probably the furthest from the truth. that just makes it funnier. ) So, how's the love song for Steve-O coming?

( did you think she would forget. did you. as much as she doesn't want to talk about her own experience, she's more than happy to rib eddie about his, especially where his love life is concerned now that they've all woken up and she can only assume things are hilariously, awkwardly, painfully messy. she can't help that she loves the drama, she's greek. they basically invented drama. )

horizon; OTA

[satanicpanics]

[ Visiting the Horizon is admittedly not on the top of Eddie’s list. He almost feels like he saw a little too much of it, honestly, and the odd pull he feels from the Singularity makes him want to put more distance between it and himself. It makes him nervous and anxious.

But there is something he needs to take care of, so he eventually slips back into his domain. The woods that had taken over in the false future are gone, and the castle is…somewhat humble once more, but the dragon he’d created as a form of snow removal a few months back is still there, curled around a turret and dozing.

Eddie won't be found there, though. Instead, he be found in the tiny trailer just off the path, where he all but tears through the door and makes for the electric guitar he keeps propped up against a mirror in his bedroom. The minute it’s in his hands, he breathes an immediate sigh of relief. ]

Been awhile, sweetheart. I swear I won’t forget about you again—

[ Yes, that’s weird. And embarrassing. But it’s a moment that gets cut off when Eddie lets out a high-pitched, almost inhuman sound, because on the back of his guitar—his beautiful, perfect guitar, a message has been etched into the wood:

WE ARE YOU, AND YOU ARE US.
YOU ARE NOT THEIRS. ]

Jesus Christ. What have they done to you?

[ He doesn’t even know who “they” are, but he frets over the message for a moment, unsure of how to feel. On the other, this is the Horizon and he can fix it if he likes. On a subjective third hand, it’s sort of a metal kind of message. You’re own by no one, no one lays claim to you.

Eventually, he lets the message stay. It’s not a bad thing for anyone to keep in mind. And later on, he lug the guitar outside to where the dragon has opted to come down from his turret and doze in the grass instead. ]

For someone named after the god-king of dragons, you’re like, sickeningly lazy, dude. Move.

[ The dragon, Bahamut, doesn’t even bat an eye, doesn't move an inch, so Eddie merely settles down against his flank to play. He feels guilty for what he'd forgotten during those lost centuries, but at least he never lost that. In fact, he finds certain songs just a little easier to play before, like 800 years of fake practice genuinely paid off. He powers out the ridiculous tapping in Eruption without breaking a sweat, and looks surprised with himself when he’s finished. ]

Huh. Shit.

steve; closed

[satanicpanics]

[ How do you reconcile that eight centuries of living just never happened? The truth is that it seems like you just don’t. You try to bounce back and move on, and Eddie is well aware that he’s more capable of that than some. Maybe it’s easier for him; after all, he doesn’t feel particularly ashamed of anything that was said or done in that false reality, and it wasn’t quite as difficult for him to let go as it was for others.

Like Steve.

Eddie spends the first day or so almost uncharacteristically quiet as he tries to sort out the mess of memories in his head and thinking about how many packs of cigarettes he’d have smoked right now if he had access to them, but his thoughts keep cycling back to Steve. Because unlike him, Steve was desperate to not snap out of it. Between the island and Nero, the weight on Steve’s shoulders has been immeasurable, and to just not return to that, to totally leave those troubles behind…yeah, Eddie gets it.

It’s part of the reason he’s not eager to talk about what just happened, or the fact that they apparently grew very close over the years. He remembers what happened last time he tried to get Steve to discuss something with him, and he’s not eager for a repeat. This friendship means a lot to him, and he isn’t prepared to risk tearing the whole thing apart right now. If Steve ever decides he would like to have that conversation, they can have it whenever, but there is one thing, and it’s a topic that needs breached now. So when he approaches Steve, it’s with a clear touch of anxiety, because he really doesn’t want to put this on him right now, but it needs to be said. ]

Hey.

[ Man, he wishes he had a joke, or about ten cigarettes—all at once. ]

So, uh…shit.

[I know you’re dealing with a lot of other shit, but— ]

Henry—Henry is that Henry, dude. Vecna. One.

[hairington]

[ honestly? steve wishes he knew the answer to that. how do you reconcile 800 years of memories? and how to do you handle the overwhelming fact that you were more willing to accept those than the ones you actually have?

when they'd woken up in that crater, bodies if all the summoned around them in various states, all pulling themselves to their feet, part of steve had wished - desperately, quietly, wholly, I want to go back. it had been better, in a lot of ways, there. easier. lighter. they'd been happy, they'd be strong, things weren't perfect but they were good and-

what about nero?

he and eddie and dustin and the rest of the summoned all make their ways back to their homes, back to their lives, and steve can't shake the familiarity of it. of living through all of this, real or not, and then being asked to just go back and keep trucking along. he vacillates wildly between memories he can't help but cling to, facts that had been so true in those eight hundred years (he and eddie....he and eddie? he and eddie?), and the reality of the things he'd let himself forget. hawkins, robin, nancy-

nero.

fuck.

part of him is thankful that eddie- or rather, not eddie in particular, but that all of the summoned- seem to take on a kind of distracted, quiet state in those first couple of days. because the reality of it is that steve has a hard time even functioning. everything feels a few degrees off, every casual greeting or easy statement feels like a mask, or a pair of shoes that used to fit but he hasn't worn in a long time.

those first couple of days take all of his energy just to keep upright, to remind himself to eat, to go on a freaking walk. and then as the days pass, as everyone else seems to get the hang of this life again, steve is reminded that it's not- it isn't as easy for him. he keeps going back, circling around the reality he's returned to and the one he misses so desperately. the weight of grief hits him like a brick wall, over and over and over, and with how the locals of the settlement still tiptoe around them all even now...

steve is in the garden when eddie approaches him, working on pulling weeds because it's a simple enough process and in the aftermath of the storms, the small garden between their room and the main house has gone completely off the rails. it feels good, feels grounding, having his shirt sleeves pulled up to his elbows and his hands in the dirt. his mind is racing (it hasn't slowed down since they've returned) over years, decades, powers he used to have and things he used to be able to do and things he can't do, if it's something he should try to, of the people he'd grown close to over those years but didn't know beforehand and if they're people who would even want to hear from him, and- well. you get the point. his thoughts circle, and spin, building speed and then slowing down. it's by chance that he glances up and sees eddie heading towards him, a low-grade anxiety vibration working under his skin.

a part of steve panics - are they doing this? are they going to talk about what happened? or- rather, what didn't happen but also what they both have memories of? steve doesn't know if he's ready for that conversation yet, even if it's come up in his own mind more than once over the last couple of days. okay, okay well if that's what eddie's here to talk about, then maybe... they'll figure it out, right? ]

Hey. [ steve returns, tossing the weed he'd just pulled over the fence and straightening. he can feel his heart speeding up in his chest, moving up into his throat, and part of him is glad that he's outside for this. that the only thing he can smell is the dirt, and the sun, and the wafting of someone who had baked bread earlier that morning who was letting it cool on their window sill.

shit eddie says, and steve stills. waits. is this going to be a bad conversation? the last one they had here, here here and not in their hundreds of years of fake memories, hadn't gone well. and it'd been steve's fault. but he hoped, thought, prayed in a lot of ways, that maybe the next one wouldn't have to be. that maybe he could handle it. that-

henry eddie says, and all of that energetic anxiety that steve had been building and building in his stomach and chest drops, cold, right down into the depth of his gut. henry. vecna. ]

Shit. [ steve repeats, his shoulders dropping as his body takes a moment to shift from nervous energy to absolute dread. he takes a step back and turns - not away from eddie, exactly, but just to try and get better footing. his hand comes up, presses against his forehead and then pushes back into his hair. ] Shit. Fuck.

[ it's not that he'd forgotten, necessarily. steve still remembers that very fact - that henry, henry, who he and eddie had known for these last couple of years. who they were friends with. who had been here, with them, in solvunn, for all this time... was vecna. is vecna. is almost vecna. he knows this fact as simply as he knows everything else about himself, about the memories that haunt them all. ]

That's... [ steve looks back to eddie, expression having dropped too. ] That's real. He's- [ vecna. the one who cursed max. the one who killed, albeit indirectly, Eddie. the one who wanted to break hawkins apart. vecna. is henry. ] Shit.

[satanicpanics]

Yeah. Shit is, uh…well, that’s one word for it.

[ Reach though he may, it’s the only word he has in his vocabulary right now that even comes close to summing up the situation, because Eddie…doesn’t feel the way he thought he might. He’s not enraged and looking for vengeance like he was in the Upside Down when Vecna was little more than a faceless, bloodthirsty being. In fact, he’s oddly calm, and he’d likely be totally resigned if it weren’t for the thread of guilt twisting in the pit of his stomach, telling him that he’s wrong for not being angry.

And maybe he is, because he should be angry, shouldn’t he? He should be pissed, and the fact that he isn’t feel like a total insult to Vecna’s victims—two of whom Eddie saw die and a third he’d actively been trying to help. They deserve better than his apathy, but it’s all he can force himself to feel, and part of him wishes he’d never even been given this information. If his memories serve him right, Henry hasn’t reached that point in his timeline yet, and Eddie just can’t get past that. Henry is Vecna, but he's not Vecna yet.

With a heavy sigh, he rolls up his sleeves and crouches down without invitation to help with the pulling of weeds, just to give his hands something to do. As he works, he seems to almost pointedly avoid looking at Steve, hiding behind the curtain of his hair, because—why? Eddie bounced back from that little excursion with relative quickness, but maybe there are still some things that he doesn’t quite know how to handle either. It’s not as though those memories—are they even true memories?—are unpleasant to look back on, but he doesn’t want to take the risk of ruining their friendship by insisting they discuss is. Better to keep things to just Vecna for now.

Besides, he expects he’ll get an earful about it from Dustin later. ]

It’s kind of funny, actually?

[ He manages a halfhearted snort, but he’s not really laughing, not anywhere near it, and he suspects Steve won’t be either. ]

Right before, uh…that magical mystery tour, let’s call it—he said he’d lived in Hawkins. I didn’t get a chance to mention it to you or Dustin. I guess I was starting to suspect something then, but…all this time and we could have just asked his last name.

[ Okay, that part is pretty funny, but Eddie's expression shifts into a frown as he yanks another weed from the soil. ]

I think he doesn’t—he hasn’t actually done anything yet.

[hairington]

[ Steve...doesn't know how he's supposed to be feeling. which- if he were being honest- isn't a new feeling for him. everything they've lived through and gone through and been through since landing themselves in this place has put Steve in a series of emotions and feelings he wasn't sure how to describe. it's all been a mess, and even when there are periods where it almost feels okay, where it almost feels settled, something always comes along to screw with them. with whatever peace they may or may not have found.

that's what this feels like - not that they're coming off a period of peace, exactly. because they're not. but it does feel like something that they'd been comfortable enough with accepting has been jerked out from under them, a constant they thought they had now proving itself to be anything but.

henry is vecna, and as Steve watches Eddie sigh and roll up his own sleeves and crouch down to help pull weeds, he feels... like he's waiting for the shoe to drop. waiting for some reaction, some explosion, some kind of acknowledgement of how fucked up this all is so that maybe Steve can help. so that maybe Steve can join, and also be pissed, and then feel like it's something he can go and take care of and it will make something better.

but Eddie doesn't look at him. Eddie says it's kind of funny and manages some kind of snort and then says something about Hawkins, about how he'd wanted to say something, about how he was suspecting things but wasn't sure and how, somehow, in all this time, neither of them thought to ask him for his last name. and Steve...

Steve watches Eddie, that feeling of waiting solidifying into something heavy, something hard. Steve frowns, dirt under his fingernails and hair falling into his own face, and tries to wait for the punchline. for some kind of sike where Eddie will turn around and be mad and they'll do something about it.

except it never comes, and even as Steve lets a few moments of silence pass, Eddie doesn't fill it. ]

What? [ Steve asks, disbelieving, as he frowns. this... is Eddie being serious? ] Dude- nothing about this is funny. Henry is Vecna. He killed Chrissy, and Fred and Patrick. He's- he was going to kill Max, his bats ripped me apart and killed- [ Steve can't say it, but he doesn't think he has to, pressing his lips into a thin line as his hands ball into fists at his side.

what is happening right now? ]

Why are you so chill about this?

henry; closed

[satanicpanics]

[ Is there anything more ominous than a “we need to talk” message? Those are words that always stir up anxiety and aren’t often accompanied by anything good, but they’re even more anxiety inducing when accompanied by…whatever the hell all of them just went through.

Eddie spends the first few days after the situation trying to sort out his thoughts, trying to separate his dream life from his real life and just making sense of what happened. At the very least, he doesn’t need to feel guilty. Nothing he did felt particularly out of character—if anything, he can only nod and concede that that makes sense about 99% of it. But one thing that he keeps coming back to is Henry, and oh god, Henry is Vecna. Was Vecna. Will be Vecna? Jesus Christ.

He receives that “we need to talk” message and for some reason, he agrees. He agrees without telling Steve or Dustin that he even received a message, which ordinarily would be a stupid decision, but he finds that he’s not frightened at all. He should be frightened, shouldn’t he? Even though he never actually saw Vecna with his own two eyes, he felt his presence and saw firsthand what he was capable of. He’s been frightened of the mere idea of Vecna since that night in his uncle’s trailer, and every single nightmare he’s had since links right back to him. But Henry—Henry has never felt like a threat to him, even in that false reality, he doesn’t recall worrying about what he might do. He’s anxious and on-edge, but not scared, and that feels particularly odd.

He wonders, almost hopes, that maybe he’s recalling things wrong. Maybe he’s created a false memory. Dreams are difficult to recollect properly, so why should this be any different? But he does have to admit to himself that it kind of makes sense. If he pieces together what little he’d learned about Henry prior to recent events, it makes sense in the odd way that only something connected to Hawkins can make sense. Maybe he should be kicking himself for not asking more questions earlier on, but would that really change anything?

It’s all so bizarre. He feels the same way he felt in that false future. He wants so badly to be angry, wants so badly to view Henry as this otherworldly evil creature so that he has someone to blame for what happened to Chrissy and that basketball kid and Max. But he just can’t bring himself to feel that way. He can’t bring himself to fully hate a man whose memories don’t align with his own and most of all, he can’t and doesn’t want to turn him into that. There’s no revenge to be had here at all. It all just feels oddly hollow as he approaches, unsure of what to even say. ]

Who are you really, dude? Henry Creel, right?

FINALLY slides in

[vecna]

[It's a lot to go over in his mind. Knowledge that he possessed in that future that he shouldn't have—that he doesn't really even now, only aware via a conversation he's not had in a timeline that didn't really happen—in which he transformed into a creature in that other realm. In which he tried to claw his way back tooth and nail, filled with so much hatred for a world that wronged him. The deep, intrinsic desire to start it all anew — and make those who deserved it suffer. The terrible, baleful need to not be trapped any longer.

And knowing that a handful of those who tried to stop him now exist with him in Abraxas. Have been existing with him, for years now. Is this some kind of joke? Should he even take what happened in that future as fact? Was it all a figment of imagining, made to believe it was real, but who's to say if it would actually come to pass?

He needs to verify. He needs to know.

And, for some reason, he feels the need to reach out to Eddie first.

When the young man approaches, he finds Henry under the shelter of a large tree, where he tends to while hours away when he wishes to be alone. It's a good spot to speak with someone else without interruption. More importantly: there are always spiderwebs hanging above, with arachnids waiting to ensnare their prey in the silk. The sight always calms him.

But he's not feeling very calm right now, his mind a tumult. Eddie might be used to seeing his polite and peaceable demeanor, his mask worn so often that it's probably left permanent grooves in his actual personality, but he doesn't wear that today. He looks cold, and guarded, and his gaze raking across the other like a knifepoint.]

I never lied to you about who I was. ["Who are you really?" Everything he's told Eddie is true, and it's certainly not his fault they didn't put two and two together by asking what his last name was.] Yes, I'm Henry Creel, from useless little Hawkins, Indiana. The middle-of-nowhere town barely worth the ink used to mark it on a map, the only notable thing about it being the secret lab in which they experimented on children.

And you, Eddie. All the things you know about the future, all that knowledge I had when we were playing as gods. Is that still real to you now?

[satanicpanics]

[ The Henry that he finds when he approaches is not a Henry he’s used to seeing. For once, he can get a vague sense of what he’s feeling, what he’s thinking, and it doesn’t seem particularly good. But who can blame him? This entire thing isn’t just news to Eddie and Steve; it’s also news to Henry, and that further complicates things.

He knows Henry didn’t lie to him. He gave away about as much information as was ever asked of him, and very little else. Eddie and Steve could have pried a little deeper, probably should have pried, but they didn’t, and chances are that they still wouldn’t have this information years down the line if not for what just happened.

But part of Eddie is desperately hoping that he’s been given some sort of false memory, that everything is just the work of the Singularity and he can discard it and move on. Because he looks at Henry, he tries so hard to dredge up even an ounce of the same fire and hatred he had for Vecna…and he just can’t. The exact thing they were trying to stop is right here in front of him, and there’s nothing Eddie can do about that. Nothing he wants to do about it, and there’s something that feels totally wrong about that. Max and the others—they deserve so much more than his passivity, but he just can’t find anything else right now. ]

Considering it happened to me? Yeah, it’s still pretty damn real. It was before.

[ He shrugs, almost dejected. He may not bear the physical scars here in Abraxas, but it hasn’t stopped what he saw and experienced from coloring his life here. But Henry hasn’t done anything. Not yet. He’s capable of it, but it hasn’t happened yet.

But he’s not quite done responding. He’s well aware of the lab and its involvement in various coverups, but even that’s relatively new information to him. Henry just added something else to the pile, and while Eddie isn’t particularly surprised, it feels like he’s always going to be two steps behind everyone else when it comes to this shit.

Eddie shoots him a sidelong glance. They know a hell of a lot about Vecna the creature, but Henry the man? Not so much.]

How long has that been going on? The child experiments?

[ It’s clear what he’s asking even if he isn’t really asking it: is that what you went through? ]

dustin; closed

[satanicpanics]

[ It has been a long—week? Month? How long were all of them even in that crater? It felt a hell of a lot longer than it actually was, that’s for sure—about eight centuries longer. It’s a lot to deal with, and even Eddie spends those first few days in a fog, oddly quiet as he struggles with hundreds of year of new memories that may or may not be real. They didn’t actually happen, after all, but it sure feels like they did.

All the same, Eddie manages to pulls himself together far faster than a lot of other Summoned, and that means that Dustin gets a visit, all while Eddie is crossing his fingers that it doesn’t turn into an incredibly awkward conversation, because he’s already been sidestepping around the Steve-shaped elephant in the room. ]

So that wasn’t like, horrifically traumatizing for you or anything, was it?

[ He somehow doubts that it was. Dustin seems to bounce back quickly, but he’s still a kid, and after Steve was so ridiculously reluctant to wake up, Eddie is still concerned. That whole ordeal was a lot. ]

And don’t even try bullshitting me, because I have something to tell you, but I will withhold it if you're even a little messed up.

[sscuriosity]

[Losing track of time went with the territory of the ambiguous eras they all experienced. If you believe Einstein, and his theory of relativity time didn't exist within any base notion. It was all dependent on a frame of reference, and when Dustin starts to get concerned with what he lost or where he was he reminds himself of that.

Eddie seemed to hit the ball rolling a lot easier than Dustin did, and Steve wasn't as easy to read now that he'd had some time here under his belt. It didn't stop Dustin from trying, but the jock with the heart on his sleeve he left back home was scarcely the same person he was with now. All the important stuff was there, but they were all more grown up and guarded.

You really do grow through what you go through.]

As opposed to the bloodthirsty monsters and alternate dimensions back home?

[It's not like they all hadn't seen just how crazy and out of left field things can get. Going toe to toe more than once with the things of nightmares made Dustin a jaded individual on the cosmic surrealism scale.]

I'm fine, Eddie, man I'm just tired.

[satanicpanics]

Good, good.

[ Eddie probably wouldn’t have bounced back quite as quickly if he allowed himself any more time than he took to recover and mull things over. If he can busy is mind and his hands, it’s almost as if he can outrun any anxiety attached to the bizarre event they just went through. He thinks about people like River and Steve—people who truly struggled with their time in the crater or with waking up from it and he recognizes that he didn’t have the worst time of it, but it’s still a lot.

But Dustin is alright. He doesn’t need approached with quite the same caution as Steve, at least. Eddie would probably let him be oblivious if it weren’t important information he needed to be made privy to. ]

Uh, well…it kind of ties into the bloodthirsty monsters and alternate dimensions back home, so…

[ He trail off and Jesus, how does he approach this? He’s already spoken to Steve, and Steve is all kinds of pissed—understandably so. But Eddie can’t seem to figure out how he’s supposed to feel. He wants to be angry, understands that he should be angry and he’s earned the right to be, but he digs and he digs and all he can come up with is apathy. It’s strange, and he feels like a total dick, but for every reason he finds to be angry, he just thinks it won’t do anything. It won’t bring Chrissy or Fred or Patrick back, it won’t save Max, it won’t undo Eddie’s death. There’s no satisfaction to any of it when Henry is several years removed from their timeline. ]

I don’t know if you’ve met Henry? Blonde guy in the Settlement? Super mild? Difficult to read?

[ Eddie knew next to nothing about him until recently. Now he wishes he could go back to that. He specifically skips the fact that he and Steve have known Henry for close to two years, knew he was from Indiana, and still never thought to ask his last name, but he’s giving the broad strokes here. He and Steve are idiots; he knows that, and he doesn’t need Dustin reminding him of the fact. ]

Yeah, uh…shit. He’s…he’s kind of Vecna? But pre-Vecna.