Chapter Text
I don’t remember much before getting back into the truck in the Upside Down. I remember a lot of screaming – by the rawness of my throat, I assume it came from me. My mother holding the hatchet as Henry laid nearly lifeless, impaled by some physical part of the Mind Flayer’s body – and someone had to hold me back. Mike? Jonathan? Eleven? I only remember parts of it, Mom worriedly looking over at me as I wailed flashing in and out of my mind. I don’t even remember the pain of it. I just remember that every strike inflicted the same amount of pain on me.
And everything went dark.
I fade into consciousness a little at a time – it’s still as spotty as my memory – the rising and falling of my body waking me. Someone is carrying me over their shoulder. A big hand holds me over my back; I assume it must be Hopper.
I want to call my mom at first, knowing she won’t be far away. Lifting my head, I open my eyes, but it’s like my left eye won’t open. I hear Mike yell my name, but he sounds far away. I don’t even pay attention. I rub my eye, hoping it will open. I feel it open. Why can’t I see out of it?
“Mike, Mike,” I cry as he runs up to me and Hopper. Hopper stops, and I can see my best friend rush up to me. I don’t want to open my mouth and speak in fear that one more word will permanently mute me due to the injury I’ve caused. “Mike, I can’t see!”
“What’s going on?” I faintly hear my mom ask. We’re near the truck now, and Hop sets me on the ground, but I don’t stand. I start to collapse. Suddenly more of our group is approaching, whispers of Is everything alright? sputtering out like an interval sprinkler all around me. I can’t be bothered. Half of them are in my blind spot – I literally cannot see them.
“What do you mean, you can’t see?” Mike asks worriedly, which drowns out the noise of the others for a moment. Jane is in my blind spot, but I don’t see her. I feel her approach.
When I reply, I turn so that both of them are in my line of sight. “My eye. My left eye. It’s not working!”
Mom pulls out a flashlight and shines it at my face, trying to see what’s wrong. She gasps, and Jane’s mouth hangs open in disbelief. “What? What is it?!” I cry, certain that there must be a hole in my skull where my eye once was. “Is it gone? What happened to my eye??”
“Eye of Vecna,” I hear Mike mutter as my mom and Hopper are frantic around me. I look at my best friend, wanting to tell him to shut up about the DND metaphors, but he opens his mouth to speak before I can object. “Taking it means you lose sight in one eye, but gain truesight from Vecna’s remnants of power.”
“Mike,” Jane asserts, “our powers are gone. There’s nothing left. The game is over.”
We both look at her in astonishment. My powers? Gone?
“What do you mean?” Mike demands. “Your powers aren’t gone.”
“They are, Mike. I feel it,” Jane swears. “When Henry died, so did the part of me that connected us. His blood is stagnant in me.” She turns to look at me, to grant me answers. I feel it. “You were cut off from the hive mind. Your powers are erased, too.”
I feel like crying. I don’t know why, but this overwhelming sense of discomfort and loss of identity, almost, hits me like a ton of bricks, and I feel my face contort into that ugly shape babies make when they’re about to scream and sob. I feel like I’m not even present in my own body when I start to cry. I don’t know why I’m so sad – first my sight is gone, and now my powers. All I am now is a new kind of minority – a queer kid with a disability.
“Come on, guys, we can figure this out when we get back to Hawkins,” Mom tells us. “I promise it’ll be okay, sweetie. But we don’t have any more time.”
Mike reaches out to me and for a moment I’m astounded. After a forever-long hesitation, I wrap my cold hand around his calloused, warm one. I could get used to this feeling, I think. But after a moment held onto his hand too long, we break apart and board into the truck. Jonathan wraps his arm around my shoulder as we file inside, happy faces all around us. I should be happy. Selfishly, though, I’m not.
“Hey,” Jonathan mumbles as the truck starts moving. I turn my head all the way to my left to see his face in what vision I have left, my eyes welling with tears. “We’ve all lost things today. Over the last few years. And we’ve survived.” He squeezes my shoulder and offers me a kind smile. “I’m just glad you’re here. I am so, so happy. Because I don’t want to lose my brother again.”
I take a moment to think, then hiccup, “I’m glad I lost an eye and not you.”
“Oh, kiddo.” Jonathan pulls me to his chest, one arm on my back and the other supporting the back of my head as if I’m a fragile, underdeveloped baby. I sniffle into his shirt. For a minute, he doesn’t smell like sweat and blood – he smells just like he did when we were younger. When I’d hurt myself playing outside and he’d rush to my side, collecting me in his arms and comforting me. He smells like the detergent Mom used to get when we were kids and it was cheap. Lavender and linen. “I love you.”
“I love you too, Jonathan,” I stammer.
When we finally pull away from each other, a smile lights up my face for the first time in what seems like eternities. For a minute, it feels like I don’t need any love other than my big brother’s. And then I turn my head just a bit and see Mike up against the side of the truck, only a few feet away, and he’s smiling and crying with his sisters. He has his arm around Holly’s shoulder, the same familiar way Jonathan wraps his around me. And in this moment, I realize what it looked like to the rest of the world when I reunited with Jonathan a few years ago. And then I realize this is the last time I’ll ever be in this hell of a dimension ever again.
I’m free. With the loss of only an eye, I’m free from this nightmare which has haunted me for years.
Mike shifts his gaze for just a moment, and I catch his eye. His smile only grows. He pries himself away from his sisters for a moment, and time slows down. In the second it takes him to move to envelop me in a hug, I feel like minutes pass. But he wraps me up for a few moments, a warm blanket around my body, and I want to melt into him. I want it to be his turn to tell me he loves me. I want him to be my Vickie – not my Tammy. Robin’s probably watching us right now. I’m positive, without a shadow of a doubt, that seeing this is bittersweet for her.
“We’re all going to be okay,” Mike whispers into my ear. And foolishly, I believe him.
But Murray slams on the breaks in the front, causing us to nearly be knocked off-balance. I grip Mike’s shoulder tightly, almost digging my nails into his skin. “What the hell’s he doing?” I hear Hopper's voice.
Moments before the truck’s back hatch is torn open, Mike and I lock eyes one more time. It’s not going to be okay – not right now. We’re not out of the woods just yet.