didntrun | (no subject)

This is not what Eddie had planned for the day. Not even close.

"Shit," he breathes as he presses back against a brick wall, his eyes squeezed shut tight against the ash falling from the sky, as if he'll be able to wake up if he just tries hard enough. Because this has to be a dream. It has to be. There is no way in hell he turned a corner while walking to work and found himself in the fucking Upside Down.

Darrow is full of bullshit, he's well aware of that, but someone would have told him if this was possible. Someone would have, because they wouldn't want him to end up here completely unaware that it was possible, without a weapon, without a hope in the world of actually surviving.

Eddie doesn't know the last time he's been this scared. It isn't just sweaty armpits and shaking hands, this is bone deep, ice cold dread that paralyzes his muscles and closes his throat and makes it so he can't do anything at all but think about running.

Run, his brain says. Run, run, run, runrunrunrunrunrun...

He opens his eyes and he's still here. Ash still drifts down from the dark, stormy sky. And somewhere out there in the shadows, very large teeth gnash together, something snapping between them, the sound of a brittle bone breaking into pieces.

Something lurches around a corner up ahead, a jarring movement on long legs and Eddie stares, disbelieving, as the fucked up version of someone in a sexy nurse costume staggers forward. Two more follow, their faces covered by something he can't make out from this distance. They seem blind, but then he shifts slightly, his jacket scraping against the wall, and all three turn in his direction. More follow around the corner.

Runrunrunrunrunrunrunrun.

Eddie turns and begins to run.

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Alex knows that she doesn't look like much, but she's spent so much of her life just trying to survive a world that wanted her dead, and that doesn't change. Especially not when she looks at Eddie and sees the panic in his dark eyes.

"C'mon," she says. "We can head up a few blocks and cut across towards Dimera and then circle back down." She squeezes his fingers. "Keep hold of me."

He trusts her. For awhile there, back in Hawkins, he hadn't been able to trust anyone. Dustin and Steve and Nancy and Robin, that had come after, after he'd already been hiding, scared and alone and convinced he was going to be put in jail for hurting someone he would never hurt.

Trust had come slowly, but it's here, with Alex.

"Okay," he says. "Lead the way."

Alex is a creature who's always known how to survive. She's figured it out, through sheer force of will. The snake in her ribcage shifts, lifts its head, and she keeps a death grip on Eddie's hand as they move quickly down the street, clinging to the buildings, sticking to shadow.

"If anything happens, get behind me," she says, glancing over her shoulder. The air around them is teaming with greys. She'll be able to find what she needs, if it comes to it.

That feels cowardly, leaving Alex to face whatever might come for them, especially when she has a daughter. Eddie is a coward in a lot of ways, but he thinks, in a moment like that, he might do what's right. For Edie's sake, if nothing else.

Still, he nods, because he knows Alex won't like it if he argues with her.

"I wish I had a weapon," he whispers. "Anything. Even a baseball bat."

Its not funny -- it's the furthest thing from funny -- but when Eddie says that, Alex laughs, too loud, too harsh. She thinks about that time she woke up with a bloody bat between her and Danny in the bed at Dimera. She thinks about how it had felt to swing with all of Holly's skill and preternatural strength.

"We're going to be okay," she says, and squeezes his hand. "Building's just around that bend."

She can't promise that. Eddie wants to believe her, but he knows she can't really promise that they'll be okay. No one knows that better than Eddie, who tried. He really did, he tried to protect others and be okay, but in the end, he'd been a coward.

Saving Dustin was probably the bravest thing he's ever done, and he knows how that ended.

Eddie nods and tries a smile, except then something shrieks in the deepening shadows and his eyes widen.

That one sounded way too close for comfort and Alex lets go of Eddie's hand so that she can claw the silver bangle that she always wears off her wrist. The greys, always circling, come at her in a rush, then, mouths gaping in horror, eyes wide. She ignores most of them, because she's looking for something in particular, an indistinct quality, and then...

She sees it. The ghost of a young woman with a set jaw and a dangerous look in her eye, her hands curled loosely into fists. Strong. Alex nods, and then she turns to look after Eddie.

"Promise me you won't freak out," she says, but she doesn't give him time to answer. She turns to the grey and pictures opening a door. She lets her in.

He's not going to freak out. Not about anything Alex does, because he trusts her like he's only trusted a few people. Eddie is going to freak out about whatever monster is coming at them around the corner and he doesn't know why Alex is taking off her bracelet, unless she's planning to get into a thrown down, knock out sort of fight with a creature.

"What?" he asks, because he doesn't understand what's happening.

She hears the question, but she's going under, making room, and she doesn't necessarily hear it. She'll explain later. She'll make it good later. For now, there's preternatural strength flooding through her muscles, all of the ghost's grief and loss and rage at a life cut short. There's a brick on the floor, not far from her foot, and she bends fluidly to pick it up, weighing it in her hand.

One of them, her or the grey, bares her teeth.

Eddie doesn't know what's happening. He doesn't know where Alex went, because this isn't exactly her, not anymore, and she'd made him promise not to freak out. He isn't. He's sticking with her, scared as he is, and in the end, Eddie isn't the reason they get separated.

The monsters that come around the corner are the reason. They move fluidly, intelligently, and they separate Eddie from Alex before he even realizes it's happened.

She'll never get used to it - -that feeling of being split open, that sense of having two hearts beating in her chest. Its easier to keep hold of herself, now, but she can still feel the grey inside her head, trying to get deeper. She stamps down on it; she'll make her apologies later, if they get out of here.

"Run, Eddie," she says. "I'll be okay." Her grip tightens on the brick, and she dances back a step. "I can handle this."

He doesn't want to. Christ, he doesn't want to leave her, because leaving her is the shitty, cowardly thing to do. But he's scared and panic is clawing at his throat and he scrambles back and away and calls, "I'll go to the house!"

And she has to come. She has to.

Eddie runs.