One Kid Gone, Another Up and Vanished (part 16)
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Lucas checks his compass again, but the needle still points north, barely jostling from his biking
“Got anything weird in yours yet?” He calls over his shoulder to where Dustin is biking behind him.
“Negative!”
Lucas looks back at the road. It’s empty with no car in sight. But he doesn’t want to twist his wheel the wrong way and splat his face against the asphalt.
His nose twinges again in reminder. Mike hadn’t punched him that hard to break it. Just hard enough that it had hurt all the way to this morning.
Lucas grips the handlebars tighter. If only Mike wasn’t so obsessed with Eleven, then he wouldn’t had punched Lucas in the face for no reason. Then maybe Mike would have been with Lucas and Dustin to see Will through that wall portal. Maybe Will would have finally come home and be not-dead.
But Mike isn’t with them. Lucas hasn’t seen him since the Wheeler house went kaput with the lights nearly exploding. Dustin had told him that he had seen Mike biking off on his own earlier and wanted to follow him.
Lucas had said no. Mike’s definitely going to find the weirdo. Who cares about her being gone when Will’s somewhere in the Upside Down?
(“And Eddie.” Dustin adds, sitting on his bed. He’d ended up sleeping over with Lucas when Mrs. Wheeler had ushered them out.
“Yeah, him too.” Lucas agrees before frowning, “Do we still have any idea who this Eddie guy even is?”
“Nope, but I know it’s not Eddie Tremblay!”)
Anyway, Mike isn’t coming back in forever. Lucas will make sure he doesn’t unless Mike gets over his stupid crush and apologizes for jeopardizing the rescue mission.
“Lucas!” Dustin yells again.
“You got something?” Lucas brakes, looking over to see Dustin had also stopped.
“Son of a bitch- No, I dropped the compass!” Dustin swears as he leans haphazardly towards the ground, reaching for the fallen object. Lucas rolls his eyes.
He looks around the street again, catching a couple posters on a nearby telephone pole. Lucas barely holds back a mourning heart when he sees Will’s missing poster, now already wrinkled and a chunk of the paper ripped off.
Will’s not dead. He reminds himself. He’s somewhere fighting demogorgons.
His gaze trails up, not really reading the other poster next to Will’s picture. But Lucas does another take.
“Dustin.” He inches closer to the pole so he can get a better look.
“Don’t worry, my compass is fine!”
“Dustin.”
“What is it?” Dustin pedals up to Lucas’ side, following his gaze.
It’s another missing poster, but it doesn’t have Will’s photo. It’s another boy, much older than them, with unruly dark hair as he grins at the camera. Printed underneath is Eddie Munson, along with a list of his important features.
Lucas sucks in a breath. He turns to Dustin, who’s wide-eyed expression stares back at him.
“You don’t think..?”
Lucas nods quickly, “There’s no other way.”
They both stare at the poster for another minute. And then they start biking again.
—
Will huffs, feeling his chest squeeze itself. Another cough starts bubbling up, but he holds it in as long as he can. He concentrates on breathing and not tripping over his feet or his bike.
Well, it’s not really his bike. Will is pretty sure that he left it on the road when the demogorgon got him. But when he had snuck back into Mike’s garage, he was awestruck to find the same one. Even down to the chipping red paint above the wheels.
He did not have time to dwell though. Will had grabbed a coil of jump rope and hurried out before any more monsters appeared.
After returning back to the current base, Will whisper-yells triumphantly, “Told you I would get it!”
Sitting on an ancient couch in the garage, Eddie gives him a shaky thumbs-up. He looks ten times worse than he did earlier with sweat and dirt sticking on his jaunt face. Even the sheets Eddie is bundled up in still makes him smaller.
Will turns and gently places the bike on the ground by the handlebars, positioning the rear to face the wagon. Then, with the salvaged rope he had found earlier, Will ties both ends to the bike and the wagon’s handle.
It takes another minute of stuffing the wagon with more blankets but Will steps back and admires his creation. Simple but perfect.
Will goes over to Eddie and pulls on his hand to stand up. Eddie does so, much slower than last time. The older boy is careful not to lean too much on Will, but he lets Eddie to do so anyway. Even though the wagon is barely five steps away, Eddie is panting like he’s just outrun the demogorgon.
“Easy, easy!” Will cries out as Eddie just flops his entire body into the wagon. Eddie doesn’t even emit a single sound. He’s not sure if that’s a good thing.
The wagon is too small for Eddie’s whole body. But after some adjustments of tucking his limbs into the space, Eddie seems to fit in better.
“You okay?” Will softly taps on Eddie’s bad ankle. Even after the cleaning it and changing the bandages, he’s not sure if it’s healing properly. The bleeding has stopped but the wound is oozing some pus. It’s also smelling bad but Will hopes it’s because of the dried blood and stuff.
Eddie moans and snuggles into the blankets around him.
Will pats Eddie on the head in comfort. “If you have to throw up, don’t swallow it. Just puke if you have to.”
Eddie snorts quietly, his eyes already closing.
Will quickly debates about keeping the spear on himself or not. He passes it over to Eddie who takes it without a word.
Will picks up the bike, pulls on the rope again to test the strength, and climbs on the seat. He stares out into the dark and desolate Maple Street.
He sucks in a shaky breath. In. Out. Ignores the ticklish sensation in his throat that’s more and more present.
Will pumps his legs on the pedals. His calves immediately spike up with the familiar burns and he welcomes it.
The bike descents down the low slope of the garage and into the street. The wagon bumps slightly but Eddie barely makes a groan.
Will stops for a moment, already winded from the effort. He looks over at Eddie, still curled up and shivering and barely holding the remaining spear. His injured leg dangles over the wagon, the shoe almost scraping the ground.
The sight almost makes Will mad. Not at Eddie, of course. But just at the circumstances of it all.
It feels like the stuff happening to them should only hurt Will, not Eddie. Eddie shouldn’t have escaped the demogorgon’s bite of death and gotten so sick that he can barely walk and eat.
It should have been Will.
Will wipes a hand under his nose and takes another deep breath.
Then he starts pedalling again.
Hopefully in the next hour, he would reach the hospital by then.
-
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@c0mplex-heroes - ❛ One apology’s all you’re getting. ❜
Klaus looked up at Charlie from the scarf he'd been knitting, both of his eyebrows lifting up to where his curles tumbled over his forehead as a grin spread slowly across his face. "Ooooo, that just so happens to be the exact number of apologies I require to make you my favorite sister again!" He said jovially with a flourish of one of his hands, the black yarn stretching a bit but not coming undone at all. It wasn't clear if he was being genuine or not.
He sat the knitting needles down and folded his hands atop the roll of yarn, still grinning. "So, which one of the traumatic events from my past are you apologizing for, hm? Or-- y'know, is it just a blanket apology, cos-- there's a whole lot of trauma." He said with a chuckle, leaning back in his chair and propping a foot rudely on the table.
"Oh! I know-" He began, his green eyes lighting up. "Is it for when Luther pushed me down the stairs when we were twelve? Nahhh, maybe it's for the time Diego said he had my back on that mission in Italy and he left without me? OH! Or mayyyyyybe it's for the time you decided to trick me into sleeping in the basement when I was seven because you said the ghosts couldn't get to me down there?" He continued, pointing a black-painted-fingernail at her with the last one. He dropped his hand, and half of the smile.
"Am I getting warmer?" He asked, but the question wasn't genuine. Even still, the half smile remained to show that he wasn't being a complete asshole. He just had a killer hangover.
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Stuart Sutcliffe’s letter to Astrid Kirchherr, on his last night as a Beatle.
‘...our big love day, remember the 28th of November when we have drive in our love-waggon to Blenkinese [Blankenese] and there we have our things that say we together, ASTRID and STUART forever and ever. Tomorrow we have 2 months together with our rings my darling. This our wonderful day - I LOVE YOU, ILOVEYOU my wonderful, wonderful, beautiful darling, I wish so much that we together on this day, tomorrow in my dreams you will be with me in my heart as never before. I LOVE YOU. I LOVE YOU.
I LOVE ASTRID.
Tonight I play once more with the Beatles my beauty, and I will play in your jeans, and your blue pullover and your [scarf?] and will close my eyes and think always of you. As I play, I think of the days that keep us apart, today 14 days, and then we together, yes darling I think also of the big room in the airport where I wait for you, and I so excited when I think of you when you walk to me from airplane. And now darling I must stop, because I see I have only 3 pages left for when I write tonight. Bye, bye my darling. I love you so big, I hope I have a letter from you tomorrow, write and tell me please of your teeth. 1960000000063 little soft kisses for my angel
Your loving Stuart, darling when you so pain you cannot write my sad heart cries but I not angry with you for your pain.
[Within a heart] Stuart loves Astrid in her pain and sadness, 1000009 mal bigger’
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FAR too many people are going "allison has always been EVIL and VILLAINOUS and DESPICABLE!!!!" sorry, you're shaking and screaming because she rumored her way into being famous as an adult?? (sorry that she was girlbossing while your fave umbrellas were flopping at the violin/banished to the moon/stuck in an apocalypse/dead/whatever). you're pissed because her abusive father forced her to rumor her sibling when she was all of five years old?? you're horrified because she began using her rumors for violence.......against vitriolic racists and a bunch of guys who broke into her house to murder her? there are two serious things that people get upset about but even then: you're mad she ~maybe~ rumored her husband (and she is a verrry different character here than in the comics so please think before using that as reasoning) into loving her, and because she rumored her daughter to go to bed?
please be serious and consider why you're so mad at her for her past actions and why every scene of her siblings causing mass destruction and murder was turned into an #iconic "omg they went feral 😍" moment. let's talk being mean to your siblings! let's talk body counts! let's talk immoral and dangerous activities! then let's talk about how all of her brothers have done those things, and tua fans eat it up because they're charming white guys with funny one-liners. female villains are great but writers NEED to consider the implications of having a cast full of male characters for viewers to fawn over ("the himbo energy!!" "the chaotic vibes!!" "the bisexual implications!!" or whatever the fuck) and essentially one female lead, a woman of color, whose suffering is never given the empathy it deserves.
consider how much better the season would have been if we were allowed to recognize allison's pain – that she was the only person alive who knew what her daughter was like, and she'd never be able to see her again – and understand what would drive her to make a deal that reset everything just to bring her back. consider a storyline where her trauma from living in the heavily segregated south, and experiencing verbal and physical assault for her race, hadn't been treated with exactly one brief conversation followed by a barely-shown bar fight that was depicted as a sinister, unhealthy lashing out of a crazy woman in the next episode. consider how we could have been able to empathize with allison AND give her a villain/betrayal arc. compare her season full of being mean and reserved and angry for oh so silly reasons – sorry about your dead people! sorry about your trauma! however it isn't unique enough for us to care about, so please get over it! – with the storylines her siblings got: learning to strengthen your abilities! being the competent backbone of your family while grappling with your mortality! having a crush! going on wacky parental adventures! and so on.
what allison did to luther WAS horrible. haven't seen anyone try and dispute that. the point is that it was included for the sole purpose of confirming to viewers that allison is now (and hey, maybe always has been?) bitter and evil and an inflictor of pain, someone who would dare to hurt her brother, who is goofy and lovestruck and just radiates that precious himbo energy, in the cruelest way possible. it was, at the expense of her growth (growth her brothers receive time and time again), proof that this grieving woman was the villain now, that she was irrational, that she needed to be rooted against completely. and there's no way anyone writing this could have thought it would be comprehended otherwise
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