Chapter Text
Mike doesn’t know why he jolts awake so suddenly at - he checks his alarm clock - half-past midnight on Christmas Eve. He just knows that he is very much awake.
He’s not in a cold sweat, heart racing and adrenaline pumping, like he’s just woken up from a nightmare.
He can’t hear anything outside, some kind of alarm or crash that might’ve gotten through the barricade of sleep to wake him up.
He isn’t overheating, or snoring, or desperate for a piss.
It’s like something inside of him simply said, 'wake up,' so he did.
His eyes land on a shadowy figure in the corner of the room, and he freezes. It’s too late to close his eyes and pretend to be asleep, so there isn’t much he can do other than sit and wait.
‘Michael Wheeler,’ drawls a familiar voice. The speaker is confident, bordering on arrogant, and seemingly careless, even in death.
‘Eddie?’ Mike asks.
Eddie claps slowly. ‘Well done.’ He bounds forward in a single leap, then lands with a bow. Mike jolts back instinctively. ‘It is I, Eddie Munson, your resident DM and envoy of the underworld.’
‘The underworld? You mean, like the Upside Down?’ Mike asks. ‘Or like Hell?’
‘A third option,’ Eddie says. ‘One that your puny mortal brains can’t yet understand.’
Mike rubs at his eyes wearily. ‘Are you a Vecna vision?’
It’s weird to be asking that question so calmly, but, well, he really doesn’t know what to make of all of this. Waking up to a dead man in his room obviously isn’t a good thing. So either Mike is still dreaming, he’s having a Vecna vision, or the trauma of the past five years has caught up to him and he’s just going fully insane.
The first option is probably the most likely one, but the second option is the one he has to be most wary of.
Eddie just shakes his head like he’s disappointed. ‘A Vecna vision? Do I seem like a Vecna vision to you?’
‘Well, I don’t know, I’ve never had one,’ Mike says. ‘I’ve only heard about them third-hand or something. But you’re dead, and you’re standing in my bedroom and talking to me like you aren’t dead, so being mind-fucked by Vecna kind of seems like a relatively likely possibility.’
Eddie scrunches up his hands into fists, tension in each finger as it bends and then closes, while his face contorts with irritation. ‘Look, Wheeler, I’m just going to cut to the chase. I take it you’ve heard of a Christmas Carol?’
‘The Dickens novel? Yeah.’ He’s actually more familiar with it from the 'Family Ties' Christmas episode a few years back, and the reruns of it since then, but he is aware that it’s a Charles Dickens story, not an original concept of NBC.
‘Right, so you know what’s about to happen next,’ Eddie says.
Mike frowns. ‘Are you saying I’m being Christmas Carolled? Like visited by those ghosts and shown my past and my future. Wait -' the penny drops. ‘Are you saying I’m Scrooge?’
Eddie sighs. ‘I literally didn’t say any of that, but let me set the record straight. Yes, you will be visited by three spirits, myself notwithstanding. Yes, you will see some of your past and future. No, you are not Scrooge. You are Mike Wheeler, so you aren’t quite as insufferable as Scrooge, but you continue to be a lost little sheep, and a much slower learner than Dustin, and still wearing the clothes your Mum bought you from The Gap. So now you have been provided with a rare opportunity, courtesy of yours truly, and I trust that you will listen this time.’
Mike swallows. ‘I - okay.’
If this is a dream, he may as well just go along with it. If it’s a Vecna vision, he’ll (hopefully) come out of it and have time to prepare before round two. If he’s going crazy - well, there’s not much he can do about it.
Eddie picks up an ET figurine and examines it briefly before placing it back on Mike’s dresser. ‘Okay. Good. So here’s how it will work. You go back to sleep, and soon you’ll wake up, and the Ghost of Christmas Past will be here. Got it?’
Mike nods.
‘My time’s nearly up,’ Eddie warns him. ‘But say hi to Dustin for me, will you? And remind him that ‘never change’ means ‘never change’.’
‘Can I tell him you’re happy?’ Mike asks.
Eddie fades away before he can answer, leaving Mike to wonder if he'd ever been there at all.