Chapter Text
Eddie hadn’t exactly fallen asleep, and yet he woke up. He thought he had died, actually, he was convinced he had died. But he is standing now. And he doesn’t really believe in resurrection. The thing is, he doesn’t feel alive at all. He is breathing, and he can move, but he doesn’t feel anything. There are (somehow stitched) wounds all over his body, but he doesn’t feel any pain. The blood isn’t flowing. Instead, it’s black and almost solid when he touches it. He can see it in his veins as well. When he presses his fingers against his neck, he doesn’t feel anything. And even though everything is dark and he can’t really compare with anything, his skin looks way paler than usual. He isn’t even afraid. There is a deafening void between his ears, and it’s buzzing down his body. His stomach is horribly empty, but he wants to throw up if he thinks about food. The only thing he feels more than usual is his sight. It’s like he can see wider and more precisely, like he has… more eyes, or something like that.
It is nice to meet you, Kas. I hope you like the gift I have given you.
His name is Eddie. He’s pretty sure his name is Eddie. Not Kas. And he knows his brain isn’t completely dead, because he just felt the slightest bit of fear run down his spine. Who is talking? The voice seems to come from everywhere at once, but he can’t see anything besides four dark walls covered in tentacles, a dirty window and a wooden floor. It’s low and doesn’t sound like anything alive. While he had understood he was in the Upside Down, he didn’t take in consideration the fact that he may not be alone. And just as he thinks, a shadow walks out of the walls, as if it had been a part of it. It’s at that precise moment that Eddie recognizes it. All moving gray flesh, nails like claws and a long human-like silhouette… Vecna. Just like everyone described him.
“You can eat shit if you think you own me now, giving me a new name and all”, he hears himself answer, and the insolence isn’t as sharp as he intended it to be. He just sounds tired.
I do own you. Everything that I kill is mine, and you have died by the hand of my creatures. You are mine. And you are going to help me survive and become King again.
“Fuck off”, he sighs, and despite not being tired, he can’t feel the strength to appear less… bored. More invested. He wants to, because it feels so natural to smile like the devil and look unbothered just to keep most of the fear away, but he can’t. Somehow this skin, the same as before, is too heavy now for him to be who he had always been before. Instead, he wishes all of this would fall off. He wishes his skin fell off. Maybe he would be able to move more.
You should be grateful. You are the only one I have summoned. Besides, you do not really have a choice. I need you, and I am going to use you, whether you like it or not.
His own lack of reaction is really frustrating. He would like to throw something in Vecna’s face, he would like to scream and shout and vomit his hatred and punch the wall so hard the entire house falls down, but he just stays here. His arms are limp, and his brain doesn’t seem to want to make them move the slightest. His mouth is shut. It’s like he’s drugged, but he doesn’t even want to sleep. He’s desperately conscious and bored, and he knows he should be angry. Scared. Something. But that doesn’t come, and he can’t even remember what true emotion feels like.
You may have noticed this, but you are not human anymore. You are the closest someone has ever been to being me, and I have not come all the way just for you to be able to do your work without being suspected. Although you are already dead, and I cannot make you look like someone alive while adding advantages to your condition. That is why there are some chances you will not recognize yourself. But you will not have to worry about that for long, as your sense of self will eventually disappear.
Then, a piece of mirror flies in the air, landing right in front of his feet. As he goes to pick it up, something freezes him up and he just stays here, folded in half, staring at the shard of glass in mild shock. He somehow has... more eyes than he should have. Sure, the two normal ones are at their normal position, and they look alright. But just under them are two other eyes, identical. They don’t go away when he blinks, once, twice, three times, and he realizes he is currently blinking with four eyes. Fuck. His skin is gray, too. He looks like an alien. And when he opens his mouth to say something, he notices his teeth are way sharper than what they should be. It’s like he has… fangs. Is he supposed to be some sort of vampire?
“This… certainly isn’t the most human I’ve looked”, He utters, relieved to feel some kind of astonishment. Finally, something else than slight fear and overwhelming void.
This is why I gave you something else. You need to move, and quick. And if others suspect you, if the children suspect you, they will not hesitate. Even though your double eyes will not be visible when I am not hungry, your teeth will. Here, try to run through the wall.
That is for sure the most stupid thing he has ever been told. And yet, he realizes he has nothing else to do. He’s dead. And technically, Vecna is right, he sort of belongs to him. Kind of like a side kick. A vampire-zombie side-kick. So he sighs, feels his legs to see if they’re still there (why would they run away, anyway), and starts running. He can only notice they are surprisingly strong and powerful when he slams himself into the wall. Except the wall is really really cold and he can’t see anything until he finds himself still running on the ground, his whole body suddenly jolting. He is emitting black smoke and his lungs feel like they have been disintegrated and created again with a whole new fresh puff of air. Actually, his lungs burn like hell. It’s just like he got out of a freezer after spending twenty years inside of it, and is starting to feel all the pain the cold kept away. He feels awful.
Although he can understand (sort of) what just happened. He teleported. He got from a place to another without really moving. He became smoke (maybe?) and moved really fast, and then he was on the ground again. That was what Vecna told him was going to help him. If he let his alive self speak, he would have thought it was awesome. Who knew Eddie Munson, the Freak and the Homosexual, could be a super cool zombie-vampire with the power of teleportation and four actual eyes? That would have been such a great movie character.
But he’s not alive anymore. And it all just seems like doom. He knows he is going to have to kill people for Vecna. He knows he’s not just a zombie-vampire. He is dead. He is a dead person. He has no identity anymore. He is going to witness the end of Hawkins, if not the end of everything. He is going to help it. He has no choice. Because the dead can’t die anymore, and he would give everything not to face the eternal void again. So when Vecna tells him he has to go and find him his first victim, he doesn’t oblige. And almost immediately, he is back in normal Hawkins, right at the border of the woods. The sun is bright and when he lifts up his hand to see if it burns, it doesn’t. It just stays gray and dead. He wonders if he can have a tan, and if it will be a darker gray, but he shoves that thought in the back of his mind. He isn’t meant to live here anyway.
Before even considering finding someone to kill, he decides to test his capacities. As he noticed earlier in the Upside Down, his running skills are definitely better. His breath doesn’t hitch, he doesn’t cough his lungs out at every kilometer. The pros of being dead, maybe. He doesn’t get tired. Whatever he tries, he never gets tired. That probably means he can’t sleep. Spending the rest of the eternity painfully conscious and aware without any break is going to be long, and he doesn’t want to think about it.
He also tests his teleporting skills. He actually gets to do it longer than last time, and sees himself wandering around in a puff of smoke. The trip in itself isn’t that unpleasant, but the landing is. He feels like he is being ripped of a life he doesn’t have each time. As much as he tries to get used to it, he doesn’t. He considers walking the whole time, but then he remembers he still has four eyes as long as he hasn’t fed Vecna, fangs and gray skin. Moreover, he’s still wanted for several murders, and they won’t let him go if he tells them he is already dead. So he doesn’t really have any other choice.
When night starts to fall, he knows it’s time. And Vecna has been invading his head for the past hour. He doesn’t even know how he can start. Where. And who. Vecna has advised him to not kill off the “children” (as in Max, Lucas, Dustin, Steve, Robin, and Nancy) too quickly, and he wasn’t planning to anyway. Even dead, he couldn’t imagine witnessing the death of one of them, let alone kill them. For now, killing someone he has never seen before is the easy option, and it’s not like he was the popular one, so growing tired of it won’t be that quick. But then, something emerges from the back of his brain. Jason Carver. He hates him, right? And it’s reciprocal. They both would jump at each other’s throats if they had the chance to. Maybe Jason more, because Eddie isn’t really all about violence, but it’s not like he has the choice right now.
He doesn’t even know where he lives, but that’s something he will figure out on the way. He should look for stuff related to basketball, a rich people’s house, everything he hates. And actually, it’s not that hard. Jason’s house is exactly like he expected it to be: big, with a pool, big windows, happy people. Jason is sitting outside, his feet in the water. He looks happy. With his additional eyes, he notices he can see… some sort of future? He can’t really know, but he can see a girl coming at him a few seconds before she actually does. That’s something he will definitely think about later. She kisses Jason and tells him she’s leaving. He smiles at her. He’s definitely happy. That fucking son of a bitch.
From where he is, hidden in the woods facing the house, he can tell the man’s life has gotten better since he died. This fact only increases the dark kind of rage he’s been feeling for a little while, setting his stomach on fire. He has never felt that before. His entire body seems to be boiling and he had never understood the expression “seeing red” before now. It’s like his entire environment turned to hell. He doesn’t want to feel this. He knows it won’t solve anything. But his throat is so dry. He’s so angry. So furious. This motherfucker has everything now, his fucking girlfriend died and it’s like she never existed at all. He’s happy, and the guy he chased for days is dead, just like he wanted. Oh, but the guy he chased is coming back. The freak is back from the dead. And he’s the one coming for him now.
He doesn’t feel himself slowly walk, he doesn’t feel himself open the small gate and enter Jason’s property. He doesn’t know he is about to kill him until he’s face to face with him in a dark corner of the garden. There are people talking in the house. And Jason is too dumbstruck to scream. And even though he regained his consciousness, even though he’s perfectly aware of what he is doing, he doesn’t hesitate. His left hand goes up to Jason’s chin, the right gripping his collar, and in an instant, a single second, his teeth are touching his neck. The skin looks beautiful, smooth, clean. He consciously decides to ruin it.
Usually, when people talk about vampires and their bites, they talk about two small holes on the side of the neck. Something pretty, minimalist, glamour, sometimes sexy. But tonight is far from that idea. Jason is gargling on blood. He is becoming weaker by the second, his hands dropping his jacket. Eddie is not just sucking blood. He feels bits of skin and flesh going down his throat from time to time. He is eating Jason. He can’t stop himself. He wants to act like a hero, stop, stand up and help him, say sorry, try to make things right. But he doesn’t. Instead, blood drips from his mouth, and his teeth go even deeper in Jason’s throat. It’s not until he feels his sight narrowing itself, becoming less precise that he knows it’s over. It’s not until he doesn’t feel any more blood coming that he drops his body, and immediately leaves.
The black smoke flying away from his body starts to feel familiar. What is much less familiar, though, is the way he suddenly falls to the ground right after returning to his human form (if he can call it human). All the blood he drank, all the flesh he ate, seems to leave his body. All the energy he had is going away, as if someone had put a straw in his body and started drinking. Vecna. It’s him. He can feel him beating just like a heart in his temples. Beats as regular as clockwork.
Thank you, Kas. Your help is very useful.
And then, nothing. It’s like the pain he felt never existed. The only things that are left are void and guilt. He feels horrible. There is blood everywhere on him. It’s not even his. He ate the skin of someone. He wants to throw up. He killed someone. He can’t get anything out of his throat, and when he tries to spit on the ground, the saliva is pink. He knows he did want to kill Jason. He knows it’s his fault, and he knows he was in total control of himself at the exact moment he was about to bite him. It makes him feel even worse. He can’t throw up, he can’t cry, he can’t scream, he can’t knock himself out with alcohol or marijuana. He can’t even look at himself in a fucking mirror. He is a monster. He wants to stay there, on his knees, in the middle of a road (which one? He has no idea) forever, he wants to mourn his past identity forever. But of course, he can’t. He has to be invisible. But he feels so dirty. Jason’s blood seems to have infiltrated his bones. He needs a fucking bath. But he doesn’t have the strength to do anything, and when he stands up, he has to steady himself for a few seconds, his vision getting blurry.
That’s why he lets his legs guide him. Fuck being invisible for tonight. Vecna can probably take care of it, right? After all, Eddie is supposed to not give up and fight against him, and that’s maybe the only way he knows. That’s why he doesn’t stop himself when he sees a rich people’s driveway. He freezes for a moment, though, when he sees the car. Something in his mind screams to get away, that this will only cause him trouble. But he shuts it up. With the control he seems to have on his mind, that’s certainly Vecna. So he keeps on walking, and knocks limply on the front door. He tries to appear less miserable when Steve opens.