come_sailaway | (open) guess who's back (back again)

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(open) guess who's back (back again)

Who: Eddie Munson & OTA!
When: November
Where: Around the ship, mostly the library and Playback.
What: The existential dread of waking back up on a ship after all that time trapped in the Nothing
Warnings: Nothing as of yet. Probably just some coping with his past trauma.

i. boys don't cry (cabin 103)

( Eddie's eyes fly open with a start. Anyone near cabin 103 will hear yelling as the realization sinks in that he's back on the Serena Eterna. For the next five minutes, the metalhead is properly catatonic until he realizes that he's not in his old cabin. Or, at least, he doesn't recognize the place because all of the little touches between his decorations and Klaus's are nowhere to be found, and of course, he immediately looks around for his guitar. )

Jesus fucking Christ. You have got to be kidding me.

( Time for some exploring! Because maybe Friday made a mistake. Maybe he was revived and brought to the wrong room. Or maybe...

He quickly realizes he's been out of it much longer than he thought. Sure, some things are the same, but there are new things that keep cropping up. New places. It would be thrilling if it weren't for the fact that it means he's still trapped here, and if he's been relocated from his old room, then who knows what else is different. Who else is different.

Who knows who else disappeared?

Eddie shoves his hands into the pockets of his jeans, picks a direction, and starts walking. )

ii. me and my brain (library)

( At first glance, all that can be seen of Eddie is his hair, which, quite frankly, makes sense since he still has so much. If one were to approach the armchair that Eddie has claimed, they would notice the large stack of books by his side.

He's been at this for a while.

There doesn't seem to be a running theme to the selection. It's almost as if Eddie just ransacked the stacks at random. Is he even reading the books? Or maybe he's just staring at the pages, trying as hard as he can to focus on the words instead of the chaotic thoughts surrounding his head. Considering his current distraction, it is probably effortless to sneak up on him, though that might not be wise as he is prone to shrieking, and this is a library.

On the other hand, maybe he could use someone to talk to, especially if that person is a familiar face amidst all this madness. )

iii. don't let it bring you down (playback)

( The arcade brings up some fond memories, so that's the next place that Eddie visits. He brushes his fingers across the surface of the air hockey table and considers wailing a puck across the table as hard as he can. At one point, that had been a perfectly acceptable form of channeling his emotions, though truthfully, it would be more fun with someone to play against.

The appearance of the Build-a-Bear machine catches his eye. Huh, that's new. At first, he just stares at it, as if maybe it'll come to life and make a bear for him (stranger things have happened...). When willing a bear into existence doesn't seem to work, Eddie lets out a huff and starts getting to work.

Ultimately, he ends up with a new friend who looks like a lion with some of the most meticulously styled hair ever. It's too bad the Hawaiian print clothes are the best he could do; with a polo, it might resemble another Hawkins resident if one squints for long enough.

For the rest of his time spent in Playback, Eddie clutches that stuffed animal like it's a lifeline. He's totally well-adjusted. )

iv. wildcard

( Want to run into Eddie elsewhere? Feel free to toss up a starter or hit me up via pm or metalheads if you would like a tailored starter! I will match prose if preferred. )

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Bash lingers in the doorway like he's still not entirely sure the library's a place where he belongs, but when he sees Eddie, he clears his throat quietly.

"You never did teach me to play Dungeons and Dragons..."

When he hears Bash's voice, Eddie tears his eyes away from the page he's been stuck on and turns to get a glimpse. The look on his face is a mixture of relief and shock like he half-expected never to see or hear from him again.

"Well...I might have to fix that, then." His voice sounds broken, overwhelmed by all the conflicting emotions he is experiencing.

( A very long time ago, a mysterious fancy man in the library had recommended Steve read a book called Jurassic Park. To his credit, Steve had tried. He really did. Sadly, the book had wound up abandoned in Bobby B’s (née Tauva) after a certain smoke session got a little out of hand, never to be seen again.

Steve decides to give it another shot. God knows he feels like he’s had the fight kicked out of him, and without mutiny on the agenda he doesn’t really know what to do with himself. It helps that the library is usually quiet by nature of being, you know, a library. He hasn’t felt much up for the bustle of some of the busier areas of the ship. He hasn’t really felt much up for anything since his reappearance, for some reason. (It’s called depression, Steven.)

He doesn't notice anyone else is here at first as he wanders the shelves of books, struggling to remember which section the nameless fancy man had plucked Jurassic Park from. The author's name was something familiar, something —

Callahan? No, it was the same name as someone on the ship, he thinks. He could've sworn it started with a C, but maybe... Pratt? Smith?

Something moves in the edge of Steve's vision, pulling him away from this absolute puzzler of a mystery. He glances over, expecting someone like Ava, but what he sees makes his heart sink. There's an unmistakable mop of curly brown hair, and something about the posture that Steve knows better than anything. Eddie.

But it can't be Eddie because good things don't happen here, and if they do they're taken away. Stamped out, murdered, sentenced to an eternity of Nothing.

So, no, it isn't Eddie, and Steve doesn't dare let himself believe it could be Eddie. It isn't hope that drives him to speak. It's something else. A twisted sense of self-preservation, maybe. If he calls out, if he confirms that it's a stranger, then any lingering hope that Eddie might come back will be snuffed out completely.

Steve moves closer, but keeps enough distance that he can safely excuse himself and disappear into the shelves of books if he needs to.

(And he will need to, because this isn't Eddie.)

Steve clears his throat. )

Eddie? ( His voice breaks; he doesn't care. )

( Eddie has no idea that there had been a period between his disappearance and Steve's. He has no idea how many painful days Steve spent assuming he would never see Eddie again, that separating them might have been just another way for him to unleash hell on these two particular passengers.

And to Eddie's credit, he had been terrified to ask around if Steve was still here. He has no idea how much time has passed. For all he knows, if Steve had remained here all this time, he could have moved on.

The emotional anguish would have damn near killed him, so he didn't exactly make any effort to track him down.

At first, he thinks he's imagining Steve's voice. It wouldn't be the first time he's wanted something so much he's tricked himself into thinking he manifested it. He almost doesn't turn around, though he shows signs of freezing in how his shoulders tense.

He does give in to his curiosity eventually, turning to see if it really could be Steve he hears. )

Please tell me you're real, ( he whispers, his eyes glistening with tears threatening to pill over. ) Please tell me I'm not imagining you right now, I don't think I could handle that right now, lie to me if you have to.

( Words fail him, and he thinks it's because he understands exactly how Eddie feels right now. It's so easy to suspect any shred of goodness this place has to offer is just a trap, like there's always something cruel and insidious waiting to yank the rug out from under them the moment they dare let themselves feel happy. There's nothing really to be said; nothing can scrub away that feeling anymore.

Instead of hollow promises (yes I'm here, and so are you, but for how long?), he steps forward, closing the distance between them until he's dropping to his knees at Eddie's chair. The ache in his throat is so much that he still doesn't try to speak — but it's more than that, really. He still doesn't know what to say. When Eddie had disappeared all those months ago, Steve had felt a profound sense of grief like nothing he'd ever known before. He'd been ready to fight the Captain to the death to bring Eddie back if he had to.

And then Steve disappeared, too, and with him the chance to bargain Eddie back into existence.

Waking up on the ship again, finding out Eddie had never come back, had left him feeling strange in a way he can't exactly describe. Like the grief he never really had a chance to deal with before had carved out every other feeling inside him but never bothered filling that emptiness back up.

He throws his arms around Eddie's middle, burying his face in the other man's lap with a strangled noise that sounds an awful like like, )

I'm sorry.

( Because, if Steve is really honest with himself, he does feel like he'd failed Eddie. He should've done better. )

( The moment Steve steps forward, kneeling at his chair and folding into Eddie as if they could meld together, Eddie feels an involuntary noise slip off his tongue. There are just too many emotions boiling up to the surface, ready to explode at any second that there's no hope of containing it. And then Steve apologizes, like any of this could be his fault.

Though truthfully, he can't exactly blame Steve for feeling like he could have done more. That's exactly the kind of guilt that probably made him prime for this shithole. )

It's not -- Steve, it's not your fault.

( He brings a hand to Steve's hair and gently brushes his fingers through, hoping it might calm him the way Steve's presence, the warm, comforting head in his lap, is doing the same for Eddie. )

For what it's worth...I'm glad you're here. Even if here is the last fucking place I wanted to wake up in again.

( The only solace he has right now is knowing that he won't be alone. Nor will Steve be alone. They can lean on each other, like before. At this point, that feels like the only thing Eddie has left to be thankful for. )

( Eddie's touch is so comforting it's almost unbearable after so long in a place feeling nothing at all. Words stick in the back of Steve's throat, but he doesn't cry. He can cry when he's alone, but not in front of Eddie — call it Richard Harrington's influence, apparently capable of reaching across dimensions to keep hold of his son. Still, when Steve finally lifts his head from Eddie's lap his nose is red and his eyes shine. )

I missed you so much, ( he chokes out in a voice thick with those unshed tears. ) I thought I could make him bring you back. I tried, but I — ( He shakes his head. He doesn't want to admit that he'd gone, too. He doesn't want to risk Eddie blaming himself for it. ) I couldn't do it.

( Steve doesn't give two shits if the Captain is actually directly responsible for sending people away or not. He created this place, and that's good enough. )

( Those words sting. Not because Eddie could have possibly done anything to change things, to force himself out of the Nothing to reunite with Steve, but because he hates this. All of this. Most of all, he hates that, despite everything, this is somehow the happiest anyone has made him feel in a long damn time.

The only person who could have come close to giving him this feeling is his uncle Wayne. For now, he will just have to cling to the notion that if he had survived and made it back to Steve after Vecna was obliterated to hell, maybe they could have had this.

Not that there was ever any hope of that when Eddie made up his mind that he would sacrifice himself to protect Dustin, to protect Steve, Nancy, and Robin. It was the least he could do after everything. )

I missed you, too, Stevie. I don't know what's gonna happen now or why we're back all of a sudden, but I'm not letting you go, not ever again.

( He reaches for one of Steve's hands, wrapping both of his hands around Steve's and gives it a gentle squeeze. )

( Steve's heart aches at Eddie's words. As much as he wants it to be true, and as much as he wants to promise the same, he knows they can't say those things and really mean them. It's not up to either of them whether they stay or go, and right now the wound is still too raw for genuine hope.

But he can pretend. )

You and me, for the rest of our shitty existence, right?

( Eddie had said that once, a long time ago. It does feel right to repeat it now. He brings lifts Eddie's hand to his lips and presses a kiss to the back of it for emphasis. )

They don't really come here a lot anymore because of the...general everything. No one they talk to is really here much and unless they wanna steal something from the claw machine, there's not really a point.

But today they see someone that looks really familiar and they pause, frowning a little before walking inside. "You win that from the claw machine or build it?"

It's jarring at first, hearing Klaus's voice. When he realized they were no longer his cabinmate, he wondered if maybe that meant Klaus wasn't aboard anymore, another person claimed by the Nothing.

"Built it," he replies, his voice lacking his usual energy. The ship really knows how to kick him when he's down. "It's...I mean, I didn't, like...curse myself or anything by building one, did I?"

Totally different reason, buddy. It's okay. "Oh cool. Maybe I'll do that for Nobunaga for like...Christmas or something." They realize rather belatedly that Eddie being here now is unusual-ish considering they disappeared. Also that they missed the wedding...which they wouldn't know either.

"I don't think so? I mean, I haven't tried it, but I'm sure someone has, right?" There's a laugh. "Also! Dude. You missed like...my whole wedding. Probably." Cause this place didn't keep ghosts anymore, so it wasn't like Eddie could have been there in spirit. "Which isn't your fault. Um. Just like didn't know how else to bring it up. And Peter and Ava got married, too."

There is a lot that Eddie has missed. The mention of Nobunaga brings a small smile to his face, which gradually gets bigger when Klaus mentions a wedding...two weddings?

"Congratulations," he replies, feeling conflicting emotions. Part of him wishes he could have been there to help celebrate these weddings. At the same time, he knows at the time his sanity at being stuck here would only have gone further down the drain as time wore on. Not that the time spent in the Nothing really helped with that at all. "You think Steve --" his voice cracks slightly at Steve's name, and he winces. "Maybe I'll make him one for Christmas, too."

There's a bright smile at the congratulations. They don't hold out their hand to show off the gold ring with the ruby in it. There's an Oda mon engraved inside as well. They do fidget with it a little all the same. "Thanks. Too bad you couldn't have come, though!"

They notice the way his voice cracks at Steve's name and they decide not to mention it. "Oh yeah, buddy. You should totally make him the best stuffed...whatever you want." There's a beat before Klaus realizes something else. "Wanna meet my tamagotchi? It's so dope. It's like...super 90s, but that's not that big a deal. I got it from one of my Sundries hauls. Nobunaga very helpfully named it Tama. There's been a lot of iterations of her cause like...they get big and die and then you start over, but it's pretty cool anyway."

Eddie sighs, part of him wishing he could have experienced some of these happy moments with his friends. At the same time, he can only imagine what kind of trauma he had managed to dodge by being taken out of the equation.

"Your tama-what-now?" Eddie asks with wide eyes. Growing up in the 80s, there was no such thing yet. Hell, cell phones were barely a thing back then, though Eddie has at least gotten used to his mobile device by now, so there's hope for him if he ever comes across such a thing. "That, uh. Sounds cool. Sure, why not? I'll meet this...whatever this thing is."

A lot of trauma, Eddie. A lot. There was a lot of bad vibes. But Klaus is sad you weren't there, too.

"Tamagotchi!" Klaus pulls the tamagotchi out of their pocket and holds it out for Eddie to see. "It's not like...so cool everyone would probably be jealous, but it's...pretty cool, too. These were like all the rage in the 90s. No cell phones, but tamagotchis, we had!"

Edited 2023-11-20 01:40 (UTC)

Eddie cautiously reaches his hand out toward the egg-shaped thing. It's kind of charming, and the graphics remind him of the Atari games at the arcade.

"Hey, if you showed up with this thing where I'm from, I'm pretty sure there would be at least one, maybe two people that would be incredibly jealous." He grins, thinking of how Erica Sinclair would probably pretend she didn't want one but would be salivating over it anyway. "What, uh. What does it do?"

"Ha. Being the most popular thirty-something year old in the situation would be something. Way better than the sus one that showed up in the middle of a drug deal." Memory weirdness is definitely one of those things.

"Oh! You can hit this button to go through things. This one is for the food and you can choose between snacks and actual food, but the snacks just make it gain extra weight and then you have to play with them forever to make them lose it..." There's a laugh as they continue to show them the buttons to press. "It's fine, though. But this one is how you play. And then you have to guess whether the number is higher or lower than the one that they show you. It's fun. But you don't get anything if you get too many wrong. Annnnd this one for when you need to clean up it's poop. And this one to turn the lights off when it sleeps."

"I don't know what it says about us that both situations are definitely likely when it comes to me," Eddie points out. Of course, there's ignoring that Eddie has technically died, but if he managed to travel to before Eddie died? Sure, he probably wouldn't know who Klaus was, but there would be pretty good odds that Eddie would be in the middle of dealing.

Eddie watches as Klaus shows him all the different controls for this thing. "I guess it's a good alternative to having a real pet, huh? I mean, maybe not quite as cuddly, but when you can't get the real thing..."

"I have only experienced the latter." There's a shrug. "I ended up in...I think Chrissy's memory. It was super awkward. I was sure you were probably gonna knife me." But they were acting totally normal. "I guess I showed up out of nowhere about it. It was weird."

There's a nod. "Yeah. It's pretty cool. I mean...thankfully, there are a lot of people that can become animals and are good at cuddling. Except for Ava. She's just a slimy octopus." Which isn't really a problem. "She fell on my face and then got mad cause I threw her across the hallway! I didn't know it was her! And also, she was slimy and weird!" How is that their fault?

Eddie? Holy shit.

[ Being surprised at Eddie's reappearance doesn't quite distract Vance from the fact that he's carrying a stuffed lion. Bullying instincts are still strong, even if he holds himself back from being too much of a jerk. ]

What the fuck is that?

( Another day, another boggling over someone he never expected to see again. He feels a twinge of guilt at being happy to see Vance because that means he's still stuck here, but as a ghost, it's not like he would have had many other options, right? He'd still be stuck somewhere. )

Huh? Oh, this thing?

( Eddie clings a little tighter to his emotional support lion. ) It's, uh. Yeah, I know it's kinda dumb, but whatever. This place sucks. I'm clinging to whatever joy I can find around here.

[ A large, exaggerated sigh. ] Okay, I'll give you a pass on the lion. [ He wouldn't feel good about bullying Eddie after that explanation, even if some part of him still thinks guys shouldn't have stuffed animals.

Stupid lousy conscience. ]

I'd say 'welcome back' but I dunno that anyone's welcome in this shithole.

( Eddie has never put much stock into worrying about what others thought about him, but he still relaxes a little when Vance lets up. He might have snarked out an additional remark if he were in a fiery mood. Instead, he just adjusts his grip on the lion and focuses on his surroundings, letting out a laugh at Vance's comment. )

Yeah, you got that right. If it weren't for the people here, I'm pretty sure I would've gone insane already.

Yeah, same here.

[ And Eddie's one of those people, even if he probably didn't want to be back here. Vance isn't very good at making friends even if he's less of a jerk than he was a year ago, so he's happy for the few that he has. ]

I've been learning guitar. I'm pretty good. [ He's...okay. But he's trying. ]

( Eddie can't even imagine the kind of crazy shit he missed. How Vance is even remotely in his right mind is downright impressive, given Eddie's scant knowledge of what tends to transpire.

But at the mention of guitar, Eddie's interest is piqued. )

Oh really? Can you play anything?

[ He snorts. ] No, fuckface, I just stand there with my fingers on the strings.

[ He means 'fuckface' affectionately. Really. ]

I got Black Dog down pretty good.

Fuckface. ( That has Eddie laughing maniacally, shaking his head with the utmost fondness in his eyes. Shit, he's missed all these people. )

Oh shit, yeah? I wanna hear sometime. Maybe I'll show you Heartbreaker; it's one of the first ones my dad taught me. ( This is a sore subject, but he tries not to let it show on his face. )

Sure. I'd like that. [ And because it seemed to amuse him the first time: ] Fuckface.

Chrissy's still here, too, by the way. She'll wanna see you if she hasn't already.

"You weren't supposed to come back."

She doesn't mean for that to be the first thing she says to Eddie when she spots him there surrounded by books. It just sort of... slips out before she can stop it, and then she's left standing there, awkwardly cradling her copy of the Princess Bride to her chest, as though that's going to make what she'd just said less rude.

It's not even that she's not glad to see him so much as that she'd been happy for him and Steve when they vanished because it meant that they'd been able to leave.

It stings, at first, hearing Chrissy's voice say those words. It doesn't matter how she intended it to come across or not; it's easy to feel like he's being transported back in time and is stuck in the hallway of a high school with Principal Higgins hot on his trail, just looking for an excuse to expel him.

He swallows, feeling small all of a sudden. He used to have a fire deep inside, but blow after blow had nearly extinguished it.

"Yeah, well, guess this is our unlucky day," he mumbles, his thumb rubbing across the words on the page he's not reading. He doesn't even remember where he left off.

"I'm sorry! I didn't mean it like that." She hadn't meant to say it at all, and now she feels like a terrible person for saying it.

"I just meant- you weren't trapped here anymore, and now you're stuck again." She's pretty sure he'd hated it here the first time, so being back again is probably not doing him any favors.

"I missed you, but I didn't want you to come back and be stuck with the rest of us."

It's easy to feel conflicted. Eddie has no say whether he's here or stuck in the Nothing. Nor does he remember his time when he was gone. Would it be better not to exist than to be put through literal hell?

Probably. But then again, there is some good here among the bad. Like getting to see Chrissy again, all of the friends he made, Steve. He wants to believe it's worth it.

"I missed you, too." He shrugs with a barely-there smile. "Alas, as Mick Jagger once said, we can't always get what we want. I guess I wasn't done with you guys yet. Unfinished business and all that."

Chrissy knows it probably wasn't his choice to come back here, any more than it had been his choice to wake up here the first time. Still, she'd kind of been hoping that she wouldn't see him again.

They hadn't really been friends before, and then she'd kind of imposed herself on his life... which had ended pretty terribly. Chrissy wouldn't blame him for not wanting to see her again after that. But he'd never made her feel like that was the case. It'd been really nice, though, spending time with him without having to worry about what her mother or Jason thought.

And then he was just gone, and it almost felt like none of it even mattered. "Yea, there are probably a lot of things you haven't done yet." Predictably, she's having a little trouble thinking of any of those things right now.

No more than Chrissy blamed Eddie for the shit that had happened back in Hawkins, Eddie couldn't blame her for feeling this way. If he were to blame anyone for anything, it would be Vecna for putting them through this mess in the first place. It would be the Captain and the ship for everything after the fact.

"I mean. I'm sure I can think of a few things." Most of them might involve Steve or some form of juvenile delinquency, but he feels like, after everything, he's earned a little bit of chaos.

Eddie is probably the last person she would've blamed for the things that happened in Hawkins. "You should make a list." It's what she would do, but Chrissy realizes that not everyone does things the same way she does. Maybe Eddie doesn't like lists.

Either way, it's still nice to see him again, and she kind of hates that she feels that way about it. "So how are you?"

This is a quiet corner of the library; no one should be making any sudden sounds.

And indeed there isn't any sudden sound just now, only a palpable beat of silence where the gasp or cry of shock doesn't come.

If Eddie happens to glance up, or if he catches any change in shadow or color out of his peripheral vision and looks to see what's caused it, he'll see Cassandra standing a few feet away: eyes wide, mouth a little open, a book pressed close to her chest as though to keep from dropping it.

If he doesn't, his first sign of her presence will be her voice, very small: "... Eddie?"

The thing is, Eddie isn't as engrossed in his book as he'd like to be. That makes him prime for noticing changes in his environment, including sudden bursts of color. He jolts, almost as if expecting an attack, but immediately relaxes when he sees that it's Cassandra.

It's...Cassandra!

"Cass!" His voice comes out almost like a gasp, and he quickly abandons his book and sets it aside to get a closer look. "Shit, you're a sight for sore eyes."

"Eddie," she says, and her eyes are abruptly very bright, as though there's more moisture in them than a moment ago. "Gods, what's happening, is everyone -- Steve is back as well, have you seen him yet?"

Steve is back? Eddie's eyes light up because, no, he hasn't run into him yet. His whole body seems to lengthen as he stops slouching, curling in on him less. If Steve is back...well, it isn't as if he felt completely alone without him, but he thinks this place would be easier to endure with Steve by his side.

"I don't know what's happening, but. He's back?" He sounds hopeful for the first time since waking back up on this ship.

"He is," she says, and her own heart lifts a little with how much Eddie's seems to have. "You're the ... fourth? Fifth, maybe? The fifth person I've seen this week who vanished from here a while ago, and came back. I don't know what that means, but --"

Gods, she can't keep from smiling. "It's so very good to see you."

Eddie's almost too distracted thinking about what he will say once he runs into Steve, and he almost doesn't catch her comment about other people showing back up.

"Huh...that seems kind of worrying, doesn't it? It definitely feels like it means something." Eddie starts to frown in concentration as he tries to consider what those reasons could be but smiles as soon as Cassandra speaks up again. "As much as I hate this place, I've gotta admit, the people on it make it bearable. All that to say, I'm so happy to see you, too."

"Oh --" Her head comes up abruptly, struck with a sudden thought, and if she were only a little younger (and inclined to act her age rather than ten years older) she might have clapped her hands. "I have your books! The ones for the adventuring game? I ... didn't know who else ought to have them."

Eddie's eyes light up when Cassandra mentions the books. He had nearly forgotten he even had those. While he has no idea if anyone would even want to play after everything, well...it would be nice to have them even if it's just to flip through and reminisce. "Shit, yeah. Maybe this is a sign to pick up where we left off. If I can even remember."

"I don't remember either. I might have your notebook as well, though?"

She honestly isn't sure. After putting the books away, she hasn't had the heart to look through them.

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(open) guess who's back (back again)

Library

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sorry for hitting u with this icon / library

sobs that face

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