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The last thing Eddie Munson remembers as the final drops of life drain out of him isn’t the overwhelming pain, or Dustin’s weeping face hovering over him, or even some cliche of his entire life flashing before his eyes. It’s the biting, all-consuming cold, like all the heat has been sucked out of him by those demobats, leaving him freezing and shivering and thinking, so this is death.
The first thing Eddie Munson registers when his eyes open again is the sweltering heat, like he’s been shoved inside a giant oven, drenched with something he belatedly realizes is his own sweat. Clothes sticking to his skin, hair a frizzy mess all in his face, and his throat so dry it hurts to breathe. He’s burning up, a hundred times worse than that awful flu fever he went through when he was sixteen; and so his first obvious thought is, so this is hell.
But when he slowly raises his head, expecting— he’s not even sure what, literal hellfire, maybe demons dancing around him, all that jazz; but what he can see through the clumps of grimy hair partially obstructing his vision is just… a room. Some sort of storage room, it looks like, or a basement, furniture and boxes haphazardly filling the space. He’s sitting on its floor, his back leaning against a wall.
His head is pounding, feeling like his skull is being cracked open. It’s hard to think, impossible to focus.
Is he alive? This cannot be. This isn’t possible. Why is it so hot?
The answer becomes obvious in a second, when he notices what he’s surrounded by. Half a dozen of space heaters, all blazing hot and directed right at him.
And then, as he glances further up, whipping the hair out of his face with some effort, Eddie sees three figures. Standing some distance away from him, dressed down to tank tops or T-shirts, skin glistening with sweat, and looking at him with wide eyes.
Steve Harrington. Nancy Wheeler. Robin Buckley. They can’t be in hell, they were supposed to make it. He made sure that they would make it, he bought them time. Was it all in vain?
“Eddie?” Steve speaks up first, his voice trembling; he takes a step forward.
Eddie tries to speak, but all that comes out of his parched throat is a weak, raspy exhale that ends on a coughing fit so painful his eyes tear up.
He faintly registers the words being spoken around him, a sound of footsteps receding upstairs and jogging back down after a minute, and then someone’s hand is touching his jaw.
“Steve, be careful, we don’t know if—”
“Nance, it’s him. It’s him now, it has to be. You saw that thing, it’s gone. Turn off the heaters.”
Eddie’s head is being tipped back, and then something wet hits his lips, fills his mouth, and he would groan with relief if his entire being didn’t instinctively focus on one thing: drink. He swallows the most delicious water he’s ever tasted, gulp after gulp, until another instinct to breathe takes over and he coughs, takes a wheezing breath, another.
His throat still hurts. But breathing no longer feels like sandpaper in his windpipe, so that’s something.
Eddie’s vision focuses, finds Steve Harrington crouching beside him, a now empty water bottle in hand. Robin and Nancy are moving around him, unplugging cables. The burning heat slowly recedes, at least on his skin; inside, he still feels like he’s just been boiled alive.
That’s also when Eddie registers that one of his wrists is handcuffed to some sort of vertical pipe. He stares at it, trying to process what this means. Did he get arrested for Chrissy’s murder? No, that doesn’t make sense. This is definitely not a police custody situation. Eddie’s thoughts are jumbled, confused.
“I think it worked, guys,” Steve speaks, turning to look at the girls, then back to him. “Eddie? Is it… is it you? Please say something.”
Eddie stares at him, glances back to the handcuffs.
“Hm. Kinky,” he croaks, his voice weak and hoarse; because of course his fucked up humor would take the wheel when most of his brain is still struggling.
Steve laughs, dropping his head and shaking it; and then, to Eddie’s utter astonishment, he’s being pulled into a hug.
“Fucking Christ, dude, you scared the shit out of us.”
Eddie’s too shocked to say anything, to even move. Under different circumstances, he’d be over the moon about having Steve Harrington all over him, even in a platonic manner; but his mind is reeling with too many questions.
“What the fuck happened?” He asks, staring at Buckley and Wheeler over Harrington’s shoulder; they approach him now too, lowering themselves to the floor next to Steve.
Steve pulls back, still holding his shoulder as he frowns at Eddie, concern in his eyes.
“You don’t remember… anything?”
Eddie shakes his head. Steve shares a glance with Nancy and Robin.
“Do you know what day it is?”
Eddie has no idea, so he shakes his head again.
“It’s the morning of March 29th,” Robin says softly. “Two days since… well, you didn’t die, apparently.”
Eddie tries to process her words.
“Didn’t I? It felt like I did.”
“We all thought that,” Nancy says. “We… I’m sorry, we left your body. We had to get out quick, we were worried the gates would close and we’d get trapped in there.”
“Yeah, that… that’s fine, I get it,” Eddie says after a moment. “No hard feelings I guess, since I’m… well, here… how the fuck am I here, exactly?”
“You showed up at my place last night,” Steve says. “Well. Now we know it wasn’t exactly you, I guess, someone… Some thing… wearing your body.”
Eddie gulps. “What?!”
“Your clothes were still bloody, but your wounds… they were just… gone.”
Eddie instantly touches his free hand to the left side of his neck. He very vividly remembers a bat tearing a chunk out of it. He feels nothing but clammy, yet otherwise intact skin under his fingers. With some effort, unsticking the damp fabric from his skin, Eddie lifts the edge of his bloody Hellfire T-shirt, the only thing on his back; he has no idea where the jacket and vest went. The left side of his stomach is still stained with dried blood, but the gaping bite wounds are no longer there.
“You were acting… I don’t know, kind of like you, but not really. I immediately knew something was off, so I pretended to go along with it, and then uh…” Steve winces. “Well, we were in my kitchen, you were saying how you woke up miraculously unscathed and made your way out of the Upside Down through the cracks.”
“What cracks?” Eddie asks, struggling to keep up.
“Vecna’s death caused a bunch of cracks to appear between our worlds… all throughout the town. The military is all over Hawkins now, trying to deal with it. You really have no idea, do you? Shit, anyway, when you turned your back to me I whacked you with a frying pan.” Harrington looks a little sheepish. “Sorry.”
Well. That explains the massive headache.
“I dragged you down to my basement and reached out to Nance and Robs. Didn’t wanna tell everyone, in case… well. In case there was nothing left of you. The kids were already mourning you, I didn’t wanna…” Steve trails off, looking sad.
Eddie’s heart aches. He nods.
“Makes sense,” he says, feeling like he’s about to puke. Something was inside him. Wearing him like a meat suit. Coming to Steve, with intentions that Eddie very much doubts were friendly. He shivers, despite the entire room still only slightly cooler than a fucking sauna. Suddenly, he’s struck by a horrifying thought. “Wait, why am I cuffed? Did I— did it do something?”
“No, no,” Robin reassures him. “It was just a precaution. Nobody was hurt.”
“But we could have been,” Nancy points out. She turns to Eddie, wincing. “Sorry. But when you— well, not you, it— regained consciousness, after we’d turned on all the heaters…”
“What’s with the heaters, anyway?”
“It was a hunch.”
“A brilliant one,” Steve smiles at Nancy, and Eddie tries not to feel anything about it.
“Something like that happened with Will, two years ago,” she keeps talking. “He was possessed, and the shadow monster inside him… it really didn’t like heat. If your situation was similar, I figured it was worth a shot.”
“It got ugly for a while,” Steve says, his expression grim. “You— it was screaming, thrashing, cussing at us. Threatening to drain us of all our blood. Its voice was… like, not your own.”
“But it worked!” Robin exclaims, clearly trying to inject some optimism into the conversation. But the other two don’t look too happy.
“Except that thing is still… out there, somewhere,” Nancy says, glancing up towards the wall behind Eddie.
Eddie follows her gaze and just then realizes that a narrow window by the ceiling is broken, shards still on the floor below.
“What thing?” He shrieks, regrets it immediately because it irritates his throat enough to throw him into another coughing fit.
Steve places a hand in the middle of Eddie’s back as he struggles to catch his breath.
“It was like… a shadow, that burst out of you,” he says.
“Again, similar to what happened with Will, except… it looked different. It had a shape like…” Nancy glances between Steve and Robin. “I didn’t imagine it, did I?”
“Like a giant bat,” Robin agrees; Steve nods, too.
Eddie stares between the three of them. Steve’s hand is still on his back, and he really appreciates it, because it’s grounding him a little when everything they’re telling him sounds absolutely insane. Even with all that he now knows about the Upside Down; the fear is now really setting in, realizing this is something different, nothing like either of these three have faced before.
“So, what, I was possessed by some sort of… Upside Down vampire ghost, or some shit? And now it’s out there somewhere? In our world?” Eddie’s trembling. “What if it got… someone else?”
The trio share another look.
“I guess… We’ll have to deal with it,” Nancy says, sighing.
A glum silence falls between them. It only gets interrupted by a quiet rattling, everyone looking up to Eddie’s hand still chained to the pipe, now clattering against it as the tiny trembles of his body are gradually getting worse. He’s actively shivering; the sweat on him has cooled off along with the basement room, ventilated through the broken window.
“Shit, sorry, let me get this,” Steve says, reaching over Eddie with a key to unlock the handcuffs.
He smells sweaty and musky, but not in a bad way, very much so; and despite the circumstances, Eddie feels a warmth in his lower belly as he breathes in the scent, watches Harrington’s handsome side profile. Well, at least that means he’s definitely alive. Still as helplessly queer as before he died (or didn’t).
Eddie makes a few circles with his freshly freed wrist, trying to restore blood flow. As the numbness recedes, he feels a stinging pain on his skin; upon studying the wrist, he notices abrasions all around it. The evidence of whatever creature had possessed him struggling to free itself.
“So… what do we do now?” Robin asks.
“Do we tell the kids?” Nancy asks, glancing between them.
“Eddie’s still being blamed for the murders,” Steve says firmly, standing up and looking at the girls. “The fewer people know he’s alive, the better.”
“Yes, but we can’t keep something like that from them. Dustin…” Robin’s voice chokes up. “You’ve seen Dustin. He’s heartbroken.”
“Is Henderson okay?” Eddie chimes in, worried and ashamed that he didn’t ask earlier.
“He’s fine, Eddie,” Robin reassures him, laying a hand on his knee. “Just a twisted ankle.”
“What about everyone else?” Eddie asks. The answering silence is deafening. “What?!”
“Max is in the hospital,” Steve tells him. “She’s in a coma. Lucas is with her.”
“Shit,” Eddie feels tears in his eyes. It’s reassuring, that Red’s not dead, but… a coma isn’t exactly great news either.
“We should wait for the others,” Steve suggests. “From California. Then we gather everyone, share the good news and the bad. And figure out what to do.” Everyone nods. “But first things first…” He looks to Eddie. “Eddie needs rest. And a shower, I guess. And probably some food.”
“I could eat,” Eddie agrees. His stomach is being quiet, but that’s probably still from shock; he definitely feels weak, and how long has it been since his last meal? Days. “And I’d say we could all use a shower,” he adds, glancing at the sweaty trio in front of him with a small smile.
For the first time, the tension in the room breaks as everyone chuckles in agreement.
Eddie’s knees nearly buckle when he tries to stand; but Robin and Steve are quick to catch him from both sides, throwing his arms around their shoulders and slowly helping him up the basement stairs.
***
Once Eddie’s stretched his legs a bit, he can walk by himself, still holding onto a wall just in case. Steve walks to the front door with Nancy and Robin, hugging them both goodbye and promising to call if anything happens.
Somehow, without his own input, it was agreed upon that Eddie’s going to stay here, in Harrington’s house. Eddie’s not exactly going to argue; it’s not like he has anywhere else to go. He looks at Steve, who closes the door and turns to him.
“Are you sure it’s safe?” Eddie asks. “To be here with me? What if that thing comes back?”
“Who says it won’t possess me if it does?” Steve shoots back, offering him a small smile. “What, you think it finds your body specifically so irresistible?”
Eddie snorts, looking down at himself, at the state of his clothes, the dried blood. He can’t even imagine how his hair looks.
“Nah, you’re right, if I were it, I’d probably choose to be in you.” His eyes widen immediately and his cheeks warm up at his own phrasing. “I mean… I—” he fumbles.
But Steve just laughs, ducking his head, and when he looks back up, his cheeks look as flushed as Eddie’s. His eyes are warm, amused.
“Let me show you to the bathroom,” he says, motioning for Eddie to follow him. “Are you going to be okay? Like, do you need… any help?” He asks as he lets Eddie in through the door first.
Eddie’s pretty sure he’d say no even if he did. The idea of Harrington helping him shower… It’s a very nice fantasy, in theory, but absolutely not in the context Steve is suggesting. Eddie shakes his head, chasing the very untimely intrusive thoughts away.
“No, I’m good. Thanks.”
Steve leaves him, closing the bathroom door, and Eddie focuses at the task at hand. With some effort, he peels off his ruined grimy clothes and leaves them in a pile on the floor, to be trashed later; his jeans could probably be salvaged, but Eddie’s not sure he would wear them again anyway, after all this.
He leaves his rings by the sink and steps inside the giant shower stall, turns on the water and actually moans when it starts washing over him. The pressure is wonderful. He finds body wash and a cloth and takes a while scrubbing every inch of his skin, until there is no trace of pink in the water running down the drain. He inspects the now clean skin of his torso again; not a single trace of bat bites. The tattoo on his pec is partially gone, like someone wiped half of it off with an eraser.
It’s eerie. Whatever that thing was… It clearly used his body to piggyback out of the Upside Down, and it’s some fucking monster. And yet… Eddie’s still alive because of it, and it somehow restored his body. Gratitude is not exactly what he feels, but it’s close enough.
Eddie washes his hair twice, uses conditioner to carefully disentangle the absolute mess his curls have become. Finally, feeling just a little bit more like his normal self, he steps out.
There’s a fresh towel laid out on the sink cabinet, along with a T-shirt and a pair of sweatpants. Eddie blushes; he didn’t even notice Steve pop back in while he was showering. The glass is frosted, and it’s not like the guy came in to peep; but Eddie can’t help it. It feels awkward.
The fact that he’s now putting on Harrington’s clothes isn’t helping. The reality of his nearest future hits Eddie; he’ll be staying at Steve’s place, wearing his clothes, showering and sleeping just next door and pretending like the casual domesticity of shacking up with the beautiful boy isn’t affecting him in any way. And hoping he wouldn’t do something stupid to ruin this.
He towel dries his hair, then checks his reflection in the mirror. Dark circles under his eyes, stubble on his chin that he’ll deal with later. Otherwise, he looks… as usual. Minus the pastel blue of the shirt he normally wouldn’t wear.
Eddie carefully washes his rings and puts them back on, then opens the medicine cabinet behind the mirror, finding exactly what he was hoping for; the headache he’s been feeling never really subsided. He pops two Advils, closes the cabinet and leaves.
***
A delicious smell hits Eddie’s nostrils the moment he steps out of the bathroom, and only just then, with stomach beginning to rumble excitedly, does he realize he actually is pretty damn hungry. He pads to the kitchen, following the smell.
Steve is standing by the stove; looks like he also showered and changed into sweatpants and an emerald green T-shirt, his hair still damp, as flat as Eddie only ever briefly saw it in the Upside Down, following Harrington’s dive into the lake. He turns around at the sound of Eddie’s footsteps.
“Hey. Feel better?” He asks with a warm smile.
“Understatement,” Eddie mumbles, earning himself a chuckle from Harrington; he hops onto the counter next to the stove, glancing inside the pot there. “Whacha making?”
“Just reheating. I had some beef stew in the freezer.” Steve looks up. “Not exactly breakfast food, sorry, my fridge is kind of empty. Missed my shopping trip on account of the whole… thing.”
Eddie laughs.
“Dude, I could eat literally anything right now.”
Steve opens a cupboard, takes out two bowls. He hands the first filled bowl and a spoon to Eddie, who immediately digs in, can’t help the moan he makes at the taste of real food.
“Holy shit. You made this? I mean, earlier?” He asks with his mouth full, already hearing Wayne’s ‘manners, boy’ in his head.
“Yeah,” Steve replies, sitting down to eat like a civilized human being, at the island.
Eddie hops off the counter with his bowl in hand, deciding to join him.
“This is amazing,” he says, still mid-chew. “Like, seriously, I might be biased on account of being fucking starved, but you should be a chef, or something.”
Harrington’s cheeks turn delightfully pink at the compliment.
“Uhm. Thanks.”
They eat in silence for a few minutes. Eddie wonders what his uncle’s doing right now; he hopes the old man’s okay. He’s definitely one of the first people he’d need to reach out to, let him know he’s alive. Wayne would keep his secret, Eddie trusts him with his life.
One problem at a time, though. Harrington was right. They need a plan, what exactly to tell people; especially Wayne, who knows the least of everything that transpired, and Eddie would honestly prefer to keep it that way.
Eddie wolves down his portion twice as fast as Steve, goes to the pot for seconds; then, finally satisfyingly full, gulps down two glasses of water in a row. He still feels thirsty, but if he drinks any more, he’ll probably just end up puking; not ideal. That whole heater thing sure did a number on his body.
“I just realized, um,” he says, glancing at Steve with a wince. “I never even thanked you guys. Like, you literally saved my ass, again, by the way, and I’m acting like I take that for granted. I definitely don’t.”
“Eddie…” Steve smiles at him gently, shakes his head. “I know you don’t. The girls know it too, trust me. It’s just what real friends do, okay? Have each other’s backs. Welcome to the party, I guess?”
Despite the circumstances, Eddie has to admit that he’s incredibly lucky, being welcomed into this group. It’s the ride-or-die kind of company he thought only existed in fiction. Like the Fellowship of the Ring.
He can feel his spirits lifting. Food really does wonders for the body and soul. So does sitting next to a pretty, kind boy who just fed him delicious stew and considers Eddie a real friend.
Eddie sighs. He just nearly escaped death, he’s still considered a murderer, one of his newfound friends is in a coma. There are some cracks between the two worlds in town, apparently, and now also an unknown dangerous creature that possessed him out there.
And yet he still finds it in himself to indulge in a bit of gay yearning. Or maybe it’s exactly because nothing about his life has been normal for the past week that he keeps stealing glances at Steve Harrington, who looks tired but beautiful in the early morning sunlight.
No monsters, no other dimensions, just your regular, mundane infatuation. Wonderful, terrifying, normal. A skip of a heartbeat when the boy meets his eyes, smiles at him, and Eddie quickly turns away. He yawns suddenly.
“You tired?” Steve asks, and Eddie nods; with his stomach full and his skin clean, he finally feels it, the deep exhaustion setting in. “Yeah, me too. Your body’s uninvited cohabitant kinda kept me up all night,” Harrington chuckles, nudging Eddie’s elbow.
“Shit. Sorry about that.”
“Hey, no. Eddie, it wasn’t your fault.” Steve places his hand on Eddie’s shoulder. “I don’t know why I made a joke like that. This whole night was just… insane.”
“Yeah,” Eddie agrees; he gets it. Humor as a coping mechanism. “So… where should I sleep?”
Steve takes a while to answer. When Eddie glances at him, Harrington is staring down into his empty bowl, chewing to his lip.
“Uhm. Where do you want to sleep?”
Huh?
“Is this a trick question?”
“No.” Steve turns to him, eyes darting across Eddie’s face. “Do you want the guest room… or sleep in my room?”
Eddie squirms in his seat. He has no idea where this line of questioning came from. Harrington can’t possibly— there is no way he’s asking what Eddie thinks he’s asking.
“I should… I should probably take the guest room.” Something imperceptible shifts in Steve’s expression, and it compels Eddie to follow up with a quiet, uncertain question, “Right?”
Steve holds his gaze for a long moment. Eddie feels his own face getting progressively hotter, the palms of his entwined hands sweating, his breathing turning all weird and uneven.
“Or maybe you shouldn’t,” Steve says, and Eddie feels his stomach swoop and drop again, his eyes widening, his heart pounding.
No way.
“Look, I know this isn’t exactly the greatest timing,” Steve keeps talking, body turning fully towards Eddie. “But I already made a mistake once.”
“What mistake?” Eddie asks, his voice a little higher than normal, not hysterical levels but getting there.
“To wait for better timing. Until the crisis is over. And then you died, and I never even had a chance to—” Steve’s voices cracks. He looks at Eddie with glistening eyes, and sure, Eddie knew that some people were broken up about his fate, but— Steve? Steve Harrington actually… mourned him?
“Fuck.” Steve sighs. “It seems like crisis is never really over in this damn town, is it?”
No, it’s not. In fact, Eddie’s currently having a crisis of his own, not monster related yet no less overwhelming.
“I’m not getting back together with Nancy,” Steve keeps talking. “It’s… never mind the details, we’re just much better off as friends.”
“Oh… oookay?” Is all Eddie can say, his brain completely scrambled.
“And I’m, like, pretty fucking sure you’re sweet on me, Munson. Am I wrong?”
Eddie freezes on the spot, unable to move or speak. What irony, he thinks. To survive a hellish otherworldly dimension and die of a heart attack in a pretty boy’s kitchen because said pretty boy totally clocked him and is point blank asking about it.
It takes a few seconds’ delay for Eddie to take in context cues, ones that make the initial dread lose its icy hold on him. Like how there was no judgment or mockery in Steve’s question; in fact, now that he reruns it in his head, it was almost… a flirtatious one. Like how Steve’s smiling at him, hopeful and a bit nervous.
“You’re… not wrong,” Eddie finally says the bravest words he’s ever uttered in his life.
The next few minutes are like a lucid dream. The way Steve absolutely beams at him, how he shifts closer, into Eddie’s space. How he takes both his hands, pulls them into his own lap, running a thumb across Eddie’s rings. How he gently touches the broken skin around his wrist, frowning a little, and it stings a bit Eddie barely notices, chest so full of fondness he might just burst. How Steve worries his lower lip, looking down at their joined hands, before meeting Eddie’s eyes with flushed cheeks and a relieved chuckle.
“I thought I needed to… like, think about it, process, because I’ve never— but then you—” He shakes his head and sniffles, eyes still damp even as he’s smiling. “And all I could think, and it was so stupid and selfish, because you died, but I thought, you’re such a dumbass, Steve Harrington, you should have kissed him when you had the chance. And I—”
Eddie doesn’t let him continue. He darts forward and presses his lips to Steve’s, because his rational brain has completely shut down after hearing that. It feels fucking surreal, impossible; but once again, the mundane kind.
A boy likes him back.
Steve Harrington likes him back. Or at least wants… to explore, or something; honestly, Eddie’ll take it. Steve definitely wants to kiss him, backs up his words with full eagerness. He lets go of Eddie’s hands, only to move them to other parts of his body, one slipping under the still damp hair on the back of his neck, the other sliding from his side to his back, pulling him even closer.
Steve still tastes a little bit like the stew sauce, and his mouth is so plump and soft, and he keeps sighing between their lips like Eddie’s the one slowly breaking him into little pieces, not the other way around. Eddie belatedly realizes he can move his hands, too, and he buries them both in Steve’s hair without much thinking.
It’s the most perfect kiss Eddie’s never had. Even Steve suddenly yawning right against his mouth doesn’t ruin it, in his opinion; they break apart though, both giggling.
“Oh my god,” Steve groans, resting his forehead against Eddie’s and closing his eyes. “I’m so sorry. Not my smoothest move.”
“Steve. You realize that I couldn’t give a damn, right?” He pushes a little on Steve’s shoulder so he’d look at him, see his face-splitting grin. “Actually, don’t ever be smooth with me, I’m begging you, because I’m totally going to be an awkward goddamn baby giraffe at this, I’m just warning you in advance.”
Steve laughs, pulling him into another quick kiss.
“We definitely need to rest.”
“Mhm,” Eddie agrees, although he suddenly feels the opposite of tired. He could sit here all day and keep kissing Steve Harrington until his lips go numb.
“Is that a yes to my room, then?” Steve purrs against his mouth, and the butterflies explode in Eddie’s stomach. “I do really mean just sleeping, by the way,” he clarifies, blushing.
Which means… Steve has considered the alternative meaning, and that is absolutely not the direction Eddie will allow his brain to go right now.
“I sometimes kick in my sleep,” he warns, just in case. He’s been graciously told that information after a sleepover with Jeff.
“Well,” Steve shrugs, “I snore, so I guess it’s a terrible idea for us both.”
Eddie laughs, squeezing Steve’s adorable mole-dotted face in his palms as he shakes his head.
“No. Best idea ever. Let’s go.”
***
The ancient creature named Kas watches from the windowsill as the two human boys sleep, their limbs haphazardly tangled together, their breaths equally slow and even in the small space between their faces.
It still feels rather indignant about getting so rudely banished out of the body it briefly inhabited; after all that work, using up so much energy to restore it. It was so looking forward to feeding on the other human’s blood; judging by the memories of him that its host carried, the boy named Steve Harrington felt like he would taste delicious.
It could still feed on them right now. On them both. For what purpose, though? The baby deer it hunted earlier sated its cravings, it feels full.
Revenge for being treated this way? Tempting. Yet Kas, unlike these monsters who literally tortured it out of the former body, is a respectable creature. All things considered, it appreciates the ride back to this world. It hated that other place; all food tasted vile, blood bitter and tart, and the beings that lived there shared a hive mind.
Crawling its way into a familiar looking vessel, despite it needing some repairs, barely a glimmer of life left in it, for the first time in a long while, Kas felt some peace and quiet. Free from literal thousands of voices in its head, it could finally think clearly. Use the knowledge that Eddie Munson’s mind possessed to realize there must be a way out, back to this world.
It never intended to stay within that body, anyway. It had always much preferred simpler vessels, preferably winged ones, closer to its own true form, and allowing for the ultimate freedom of movement. The vulture it found for itself earlier today suits it just perfectly.
Human forms are so unnecessarily… complicated. Confusing. All those thoughts and emotions Kas never understood. Even now, it’s not sure what compelled it to want to feed on this particular human, Steve. He doesn’t smell any better than the deer did.
Vowing to itself to never inhibit a human body again, for its own mental well-being, Kas flaps its wings and takes off, never to be seen around Hawkins again.