Boltedfruit Archive

The first time, the portal closes on him. Robin’s is the last face he sees before the glowing edges seal together and leave him looking up into a red, thundering sky.

Steve makes it two days.

He falls asleep in his own bed, stuck in 1983 apparently on a day when he decided to do laundry because he has to search the hall closet for sheets. He dreams of blue summer skies and clammy heat and wakes up on the hard ground in the middle of a clearing.

And only feet away stands Eddie, not dead, staring at him with blank eyes.

He’s wearing the last thing Steve saw him in, and he’s covered in blood. Paints his pale skin dark and blotchy, makes him look anemic in almost an ironic way.

There’s a cliff only yards away, black vines a twisted mess where they mingle noisily together.

Steve goes to him, slowing when Eddie doesn’t say anything. Doesn’t look like he even knows who Steve is.

Eddie could be dead right now, Steve thinks. From the dead stare to the stiff limbs to the limp, blood-matted mess of curls, he looks it.

This could all be some weird Upside Down dream. A vision of death Vecna tailored just for him.

But then Eddie’s eyes are slowly dragging until they land on his, and Steve smiles.

“There you are. Y-you really had Dustin in a—”

It hurts. He gasps. Warmth climbs up his throat and he swallows it down. Ends up choking on it, ends up spitting it out, ends up speckling Eddie’s face in even more blood.

Steve lets his chin fall. Sees Eddie’s fingers disappearing just below his sternum. His hand is black.

A deft twist of his wrist leaves Steve numb from pain. His knees buckle, and the last thing he’s aware of is the way Eddie’s fingers are long and sharp as they withdraw from his body, gore slick and bright even in the red atmosphere.

–

He wakes up on hard, cracked ground. Vines wriggle and writhe at his feet as he steps over them.

Across the clearing stands Eddie, fingers long and dark and sharpened to knifepoints.

What the hell kind of game Vecna is playing with him?

He doesn’t have a walkman, doesn’t have a favorite song. He’s been stuck in a hellscape for two, maybe three days now, and here he is facing down a ghost.

A ghost who’s claws have pierced his skin, sunk into his organs and twisted until the pain was everything, everywhere. Until it was all he knew.

Then he woke up to do it all over again.

Steve remembers using himself as bait to lure out one of the demodogs. He had to protect Dustin then. Here and now, who is he protecting?

He stays put, because before he didn’t. Before, he got curious, got hopeful.

But Eddie has those same dead eyes and he can still feel the ghost of sharp knives tugging at his intestines.

Eddie tilts his head. That’s it, but it still makes him jump out of his skin.

He expects Eddie to run at him or something, but he doesn’t. Just stays there, head tilted, eyes dark and blank.

Then the bats come.

And they tear him to pieces.

–

And he wakes up.

He braces a hand on a vine and pushes himself to his knees. It pulses wetly under his fingers. He squishes until black ooze spurts out.

He smears it between his fingers.

Steve sighs and stands up.

Eddie’s standing, back ramrod straight and eyes giving him the same thousand-yard stare.

“What the fuck is going on,” he mutters as he approaches slowly.

Eddie stays where he is as Steve circles him, keeping a good amount of distance between them.

On impulse, he reaches out fast and shoves two fingers into Eddie’s shoulder. Makes him stumble a step forward.

He turns around slowly, eyes finding Steve’s. He stays still.

“You in there? Or is Vecna using you as some kind of sick puppet? Didn’t you say you were the master of those?”

Eddie’s left eyelid twitches. Steve inhales sharply.

Then a vine grabs his ankle and throws him off the cliff.

–

When he wakes this time, Eddie is closer, is looking down at him already.

Steve shoots up, scrambles back because Eddie’s fingers are still long, still dark, still sharp enough to pull his insides out, and Steve never wants that pain again, and—

When he falls back over the cliff edge, those claws pierce his ankle, make him scream.

Steve dangles, vines undulating and damp underneath him as they wake to the body within their reach. He looks towards the sky, sees Eddie’s bloodied face peeking over the edge.

Sees the shape of black wings erupting into the sky, eclipsing the false sun.

He struggles. A vine wraps around his throat.

The last thing Steve sees is Eddie’s eyes going wide, blood coating parted lips.

The last thing he hears is Eddie’s voice saying, “You have to end it before it ends—”

–

Steve wakes up.

And he keeps waking up.