Chapter Text
Battle of the Bands
November 1989, Indianapolis
Jeff sits next to Gareth in the green room, the antsy bouncing of his leg sends Gareth’s brain back several years. Far back enough to a particularly small storage room before a rather thrilling night-before-Thanksgiving performance, and the clenching in his chest intensifies.
He blows out a breath to settle the ache. “So, what are our options again?”
Jeff’s nervous leg stills. “I know you might not want to, but we could do –”
“I swear to god,” Gareth snarls with no real malice behind it, “if you say Walk, I’m gonna punch you.”
That gets a barking laugh from Sully, who lies sprawled on the couch, idly twirling his drumstick between his fingers.
“No,” Jeff drawls with a grin, proud of his friend for dropping a reference that would have sent him into a spiral this time last year, “I was actually gonna suggest something to balance out our shit so far. It’s been pretty dark –” another snicker from Sully and this time, Gareth joins in, “maybe we do the one we trialed last month in West Lafayette?”
Gareth straightens. “Oh, shit.”
Jeff’s beams, his eyebrows raised expectantly. “Yeah?”
“Fuck yeah.” Gareth looks to the rhythm guitarist, who nods in agreement.
Sully’s fingers flip the stick high above his head, and he snatches it out of the air with tremendous dexterity. “Let’s fuckin’ win this thing. Sudden Death, my ass. Should be us, boys – let’s go!”
“You assholes again, huh?”
Gareth throws his head back and cackles, the light of the stage glimmers off of the silver dagger that dangles from his ear as it bounces around on its delicate hoop.
With all the swagger his rockstar status allows, he saddles up to the stand and presses his lips into the mic. “That’s right, Indianapolis. Another year, another fuckin’ victory for your favorite metal band!”
The crowd’s response is deafening, a sonorous wave of favor for him and the men he's been fortunate to call his bandmates for over two years now.
“All right, all right, quiet down,” Nick the emcee barks, side-eyeing a smirking Gareth. “Congratulations aren’t official yet. This is the Sudden Death round, not a victory lap.”
Nick is met with some jeers from the crowd, and he shoots them a glare to put them in their place. “Our other incredibly talented challengers have just rocked this place practically to the ground –” this time, the roar is louder as the challenger’sfans yell their support – “I hope to hell you all have a solid plan, ‘cause you’re gonna need it after that original song Next Hex just performed. You gotta admit, fellas,” the man at the helm jests in fun, “they fuckin’ blew your minds. You know they did.”
Gareth steals a look offstage to the band members of Next Hex, making sure to toss an overly dramatic, cocky wink to Denise. He’s pretty sure she might kill him after the show regardless of the outcome if he doesn’t reel it in.
But where’s the fun in that?
“Oh, I think we got ‘em. Worthy opponents, yes,” he murmurs with a tinge of condescension, dipping his chin in their direction. He snickers as the lead guitarist flips him the bird from her perch on her barstool. “It’s too bad they’ll be coming up just short of a victory this year. Sorry, ladies,” Gareth’s cocksure grin assures that he’s not sorry at all, “we’re goin’ for the repeat.”
The emcee’s lips twist into a crooked grin, the hands at his side gesture to the raucous crowd to quiet. “All right, I like the confidence! Now, I gotta ask, gentlemen of Morbid Mayhem,” Nick puts an unnecessary and snarky emphasis on gentlemen, and it gets a laugh from the audience. “Your song that undoubtedly threw you into the Sudden Death round –”
“A Little Piece of Heaven?” Gareth murmurs impishly, grinning as he’s met with an explosion of applause and cheers.
Nick’s eyes flare reactively. “Yeah. That fucking one. Where in the hell – what were you guys on when you wrote that?”
The band soaks up the moment, a cacophony of positivity just for them and the debut of their newest work. Jeff steps up to his stand and offers an explanation.
“You’re gonna have to ask him,” he chuckles as he gestures to the drummer. “That’s his baby. You wanna tell ‘em, Sully?”
Sully shrugs unbothered from his perch behind his set, a devilish flash of mirth dances over his features. “Nothing like writing after a night out chocked full of strippers, blow and Jim Beam.”
Nick’s cackling laugh booms over the venue. “Probably a pretty regular occurrence for you rockstars, amiright?”
Gareth tongues his lip ring nervously. It isn’t; not for him, anyway. It hasn't been for a long time for Jeff, either. That’s more Sydd and Sully’s scene since their band started to take off a couple of years ago, about six months after he and Jeff moved to Indianapolis.
He snickers anyway, the way his lips curl around the mesh lead the crowd to believe that he is indeed living the rockstar high life, even though that couldn’t be further from the truth. There are benefits of remaining mysterious, especially when you have two incredibly talented and extroverted members who don’t mind taking the brunt of the attention. Gareth’s done a stellar job of deflecting, and tonight, he continues his trend.
“Enough dicking around,” Gareth intones deeply, the harsh rasp in his voice hushes the crowd. “We’re here to balance it out – A Little Piece of Heaven is fucked-up to the extreme, a little ode to all us sinners.” He practically sneers the last word, punctuating it with a wicked smile. “But for this final round, we thought we’d treat you to something a little more…”
The lead guitarist trails off as he searches for the right words amongst the blinding lights of the stage.
Luckily for him, Jeff steps in.
“Saintly.”
A sardonic scoff covers up the way his heart leaps in his throat. “Precisely, Jeffrey,” Gareth steals a glance at his bassist, tossing him a wry wink before flicking his pick at his face. The crowd guffaws as it hits Jeff square in the chest. “If any of you dickheads were at our show in West Lafayette, you’ll recognize it for sure.”
Sydd and Jeff lean into their stands, crooning a perfectly harmonious Woah that carries for several bars as the first chords are strummed.
Gareth shuffles a step and a half back to the Sully’s raised platform, grabbing the pint that he requested before the round began. Raising his beer to the crowd, he practically shouts his intro.
“I need you all to raise your fuckin’ glass, get ‘em up! This song is for each one of you, though it was written in memory of one man - a man who was larger than life and left his mark on us in ways that’ve stained us forever. You might not have known ours, but I swear to fuckin’ god, every single one of us here knows a Saint James.”
Gareth thrusts his beer high into the air before bringing it to his lips, downing the drink in several swift gulps. He tosses the glass to a leather-clad girl in the front row, punctuating it with a coquettish purse of his lips before he slams his pick over a harsh set of chords and blends his gritty tone with Jeff before launching into the first verse.
This is the story of a man
Who conquered life drink in hand
Ship unmanned, yeah
A familiar lump forms in his throat as he thinks of his dark-eyed best friend, the next lines more telling of Eddie, a marquee of truth to his nature and the very reason why there’s still a hole left in Gareth’s heart to this day.
Marked by genius, channeled good
By some a bit misunderstood
They'd been wrong many times before
Sometimes our saints are sinners
They blur the lines and lead the way
Their way
Gareth throws himself into the lyrics, the well-practiced lines doused in so much heart and grit that’s roughened as time has passed.
Raise hell and a glass in reverence
The fearless lives of our great saints
Our saints
He joins in this time on the harmony with Jeff, barely audible over the roar of the crowd before Sydd begins his lines of the second verse. The addition of the bassist’s tone elevates both the words and their sound in ways that still gives him chills. There’s such beauty in how it affects them after all this time, like Eddie’s very essence lives in how they belt and bellow another round of the chorus.
Then, it’s Gareth that channels every bit of energy he has into the solo, willing his fingers to press and slide with as much precision as his friend’s once did. There was once a time where he feared he wasn’t enough, that he’d never do the part justice that Eddie deserved. Tonight, though? He does. Calloused fingers flick and flutter expertly over the neck of his guitar, rounding out the solo before softening the tone to melt into the bridge.
It's by the sea and at nights end
That's when the sin and swill begin
That's when he had that certain light inside his head
A new crescendo is ad-libbed; Gareth pushes his range up an octave, still well in his comfort zone but out of the realm of what is intended – like he’s showing exactly what he’s got to a crowd of one.
For every whisper he would scream
For every draught he'd share a drink
For every sorrow there's a light
He slams his eyes shut and throws everything behind the name he hopes this crowd remembers,
From our St. James
The melody suddenly ceases; Gareth’s guitar swings unattended at his waist. He wraps his hand around the mic as he closes out the bridge alone, mourning once and for all the light in his life that he’s lost in the best way he knows how.
On the sea by the cliff he watches
He waits the night to see the day
His way
Thick, unyielding emotion lodges in his throat, and Gareth has to turn away from the mesh, coughing harshly to clear it. The action takes but a moment too long, and the consequence of beginning a beat late sounds fumbling to his trained ears. It may have cost them the title, depending on how noticeable it is and how finicky these judges want to be.
At this point, Gareth couldn’t give a shit less – if this is what has them losing, then so be it. The crowd’s been more into this song than they were any other this weekend, the hauntingly poetic lines seem to resonate with every last person in that bar.
Last call will find us all
But there's a light that leads the way
A serene sort of smile plays on his lips, a deep sense of calm drenches his skin as he croons,
Our way
It widens into a megawatt smile, so bright that his cheeks ache with the strain. He hasn’t felt like this in ages – on the verge of euphoria that he once felt as the rhythm guitarist of Corroded Coffin, standing next to his best friend and debuting one of your newly penned songs to the crowd of ten at the Hideout.
So, in this moment, he pauses and pretends he is. He imagines Ed to his right instead of Sydd, you in the front row instead of that gorgeous brunette in the lace-up leather top – dancing with Robin and Steve who, bless them, can’t carry rhythm in a bucket. Gareth feels electric the way he pours everything into the last go-round of the chorus, wanting to win it all for the man the very song immortalizes.
Sometimes our saints are sinners
They blur the lines and lead the way
Their way
Raise hell and a glass in REVerence
The fearless lives of our great saints
Our saints
A furious wallop of drums signals the outro, a blend of all four voices that hold strong as the lights dim. Gareth’s chest is heaving, sweat streams over his cheeks and in his eyes in saltwater droves. He’s exhausted, the last performance of a three-day stint just sucked every last bit of energy from his bones, but he couldn’t be happier. Whatever is decided, he already feels like they’ve won with the way the stage seems to shake from the waves of enthusiasm that flows from the crowd.
The post-performance high lingers under his skin, even through the twenty-three agonizing minutes it takes for the judges to make a decision. In Gareth’s very valid opinion, he thinks the champion was named immediately – and it was either the panel or Nick himself that wanted to fuck with the bands. Make ‘em all sweat it out for a bit – and trust him, he did. His Guns ‘N Roses tee is drenched down the sides, the cotton that drapes over his shoulders and down his back sticks in tacky bunches and offers no reprieve from the heat of his nerves.
Turns out, it was worth it.
He pumps a triumphant fist in the air, his genuine smile flashes all his teeth as Gareth celebrates the consecutive victory with his bandmates. As soon as the mic is handed over, he’s sure to first give credit where it’s due – profusely thanking and praising the members of Next Hex and promising a Sudden Death rematch for the following year.
There’s a good chance it landed as intended, if the thin-lipped nod from Denise was anything to go by. Curt, but not unkind.
Gareth snickers to himself. Suppose that’s a win in and of itself.
Nick’s booming oration to the crowd pulls Gareth from his reverie, and before he knows it, he’s holstering his guitar over his shoulder for an encore. After fiddling with his amp, he pulls the stand to his lips and asks the crowd a very important question.
“How ‘bout we treat you guys to what won it our first year?” He turns to Sully, who gives him a nod. “Whaddya say, boys?”
“Is it time for some Unholy Confessions?”
Gareth opens his mouth to decline Nick’s suggestion in favor of another when he hears it. It starts low, a rumble of unintelligible melody near the middle of the crowd, and quickly gains momentum the way they shout the lyrics to the song that put them on the map.
I wish I could be the one
The one who won’t care at all
But being the one on the stand
Even after all this time, it never gets old. Stealing a look at Jeff, his heart swells in his chest when he sees the awe and gratitude paint his features as he presses his lips to the mic and helps the crowd.
I know the way to go, no one’s guiding me
When time soaked with blood turns it back
I know it’s hard to fall
Gareth rises from his knees, foregoing a pick to gently strum calloused fingers over the final chord of the chorus. He plays into the crowd and belts the final lines of his favorite original tune,
Confided in me was your heart
I know it’s hurting you, but it’s killing me
His palms go up, facing the crowd. “Nah. The other one." Digging into his back pocket for a spare pick, he holds it between his teeth as he adjusts his shoulder strap one last time. “Lighters up you shits,” he taunts the crowd tightly, “sing it if you know it.”
Gareth catches Jeff’s eye before he rolls through his intro, his practiced dedication that he says without fail before every time they play the song live.
“This one goes out to all you cowards out there!” He shouts to the masses with a passion that he summons from the fire in his gut. “You know who the fuck you are. This song is meant to hit you like a bullet to the chest – so man up and listen up – fuckers! –” some of the more seasoned fans shout it in tandem with Gareth – “as we Seize the Day!”
There’s a heaviness in his chest, a premonition almost, the way his heart flutters and something akin to foreboding swoops low in his belly. He’s never really said it, never admitted out loud to anyone who he wrote the song for almost three years ago.
Jeff always knew, of course, but there was no formal discussion. It never needed to be said.
Something is growling, ripping, tearing at his insides to say it. Now.
Holding his hand out to the side, he signals his rhythm guitarist to wait with a palm flat to the stage. Sydd eyes him warily, pick hovering over his strings, and Gareth’s thin-lipped, miniscule shake of his head tells him to wait, just for a moment.
Gareth sucks in a deep breath through his nose and speaks before he can convince himself to shut up.
“It hit me, you know. That bullet to the chest.” An oppressive wave of insecurity threatens to pull Gareth under, and he grits his teeth and presses on. “I don’t talk about this – but uh, I wrote this song almost three years ago,” he swallows a dry tangle of anguish, “after I lost her.”
The crowd is silent, some lighters go out as arms are lowered to listen to the rough and tumble frontman of Morbid Mayhem share the backstory of their most beloved song.
“She didn’t know. She’ll never know,” Gareth draws in a ragged breath, “I’ll go to my grave regretting not manning up and saying the words the very last time I saw her. Whaddya say, Indianapolis? Tonight we say the fuckin’ words, yeah?”
A few scattered yeahs! reach his ears, and Gareth huffs a sardonic laugh as he shouts, “Oh for fuck’s sake, do better than that!”
He might go down regretting this even as a roaring chorus of chanting yeah! reaches his ears; he may end up cursing himself and his decision to divulge such a vulnerable part of his past, but there’s not a bit of him that cares. Not now, not when he’s finally let the world know – or, at least those packed into this venue in Indianapolis, Indiana – that he finally manned up and admitted his mistakes and put it down in a song.
That he, Gareth Emerson, finally wrote you a ballad.
A pointed flash of baby blue to his right, and Sydd’s first chord is strum, perfect and synchronous with Gareth’s opening lines.
Seize the day or die regretting the time you lost
It's empty and cold without you here
Too many people to ache over
His pick strikes the strings, a harsh series of downstroked chords chocked full of every bit of heartbreak he felt the day he penned these words.
I see my vision burn
I feel my memories fade with time
But I'm too young to worry
The note Gareth holds wobbles, a faint, unintended tremolo that softly mourns the memory of you.
These streets we travel on
Will undergo our same lost past
As it does with every time he performs this song, his mind floods with flashbacks – a visual journey through his precious time spent with you by his side.
I found you here, now please just stay for a while
Line by line, he cards over memories like they’re photographs: the hospital, driving you home for the first time, how your presence, even if it was painful, patched that hole in his chest.
I can move on with you around
I hand you my mortal life
But will it be forever?
Time spent holding, crying, begging, comforting – it never fails to ambush his senses in waves. If he closes his eyes and really loses himself in the lyrics, he can feel the ghost of your fingers as they cling to the fabric of his shirt – feel the sting of your nails as they dig into the flesh of his back.
He can see you. Smell you. Touch you again, if only in his mind.
I'd do anything for a smile
Holding you 'til our time is done
His lips curl over the mesh, a soft upturn of his lips is a secret between him and the memory of your smile. There’s a reverence in his tone, silken and sweet like honey. A tone reserved only for you.
We both know the day will come
But I don't want to leave you
Sydd joins him in the chorus, though he could just let the crowd take it over with how loudly the lyrics are shouted back. The fans are just as well-practiced as they are, matching every inflection and pause with precision. Gareth rolls through the first lines of the second verse, quickly slipping his mic from the stand and holding it out over the crowd.
The response is deafening. They know exactly what Gareth wants, and so they scream it back with such vehemence it almost takes his breath away.
“Will you take a journey tonight
Follow me past the walls of death?
But girl, what if there is no eternal life?”
All of the energy he thought he’d spent in the sudden death round comes roaring back, sponsored by the unparalleled support from the crowd. His voice adopts a deeper timbre, roughened and raw with unmistakable suffering from the years spent without you.
I see my vision burn
I feel my memories fade with time
But I'm too young to worry
A melody, a memory, or just one picture
Seize the day or die regretting the time you lost
It's empty and cold without you here
Too many people to ache over
Because he did. It almost killed him when the days passed and there was no word from you; when he searched for answers after you disappeared and was left with nothing.
Trials in life, questions of us existing here
Don't wanna die alone without you here
Hawkins held too many memories, a thumb to a mottled bruise that just wouldn’t heal. Life felt like it was hardly worth living, and so he poured what little he had left into these lines as he made plans to live on without you.
The distance never did settle the lingering turmoil he carried in his heart. Never free. Always wondering.
Please tell me what we have is real
Gareth lifts his eyes past the crowd, straining beyond the lights to scan the shadows along the far wall. There’s something here. Something so strong and all-encompassing that transcends the lights and the crowd and the adrenaline high from winning that’s only meant for him. It lights up his very soul, pulls the lingering sorrow and grief right from his bones and delivers it through a voice that’s coarse with the grit of his pain,
So what if I never hold you?
Or kiss your lips again?
Longing pours from his soul as he allows himself to feel. To consider if it's true, and you’re really gone. That whatever ripped you from his arms isn’t giving you back, and it strikes an excruciating chord across his heartstrings.
The venue is a both a confessional and a church; Gareth sinks to his knees as he prays,
So I never want to leave you
And the memories of us to see I beg don't leave me
He's a picture of supplication, hands wrapped around the body of the microphone like a lifeline. The final turn of the chorus is a bloodletting, every last remaining shard of his grief flows freely from where he kneels on stage.
Seize the day, or die regretting the time you lost
It's empty and cold without you here
Too many people to ache over
Trials in life, questions of us existing here
Don't wanna die alone without you here
Please tell me what we have is real
And then he's up, planting his feet in a too-wide stance. Gareth leans back on his powerful legs, into the space of his rhythm guitarist to synch up the chugging chords of the outro. The tempo is dead-on with the pounding in his chest, the same beat that held him upright the moment he stood in front of you and poured out his heart that fateful night in his garage.
The notes crescendo, a cue for Jeff and Sydd to begin first, a melancholy closure in these lyrics Gareth both craves and avoids.
Silence you lost me, no chance for one more day
Sully’s tenored rasp joins in, elevating the misery that drips from every word,
Silence you lost me, no chance for one more day
Gareth’s heart feels like it could burst from its cage with the way he belts,
I stand here alone
Falling away from you, no chance to get back home
The round repeats, and though there are three that sing in unison on the first, it’s Gareth’s part that resonates. It’s heard, it’s felt, it’s what the audience mimics right back through the very last of the song.
I stand here alone
Falling away from you, no chance to get back home
His shoulders are heaving from his efforts, his head a little dizzy as his lungs struggle to catch up. The crowd fades as the lights go down, and Gareth hoarsely hollers his thanks into the mic one last time before the venue goes black.
He’s grateful. The lead guitarist’s jaw clenches around a sob, the ache and the sting of stifled tears is too much, and he allows one – and only one – to fall, shrouded in the privacy of the darkness on stage.
Gareth still finds that the strangest things happen to him, even one hundred miles from Hawkins.
It starts without him even noticing. Opting to help the venue’s crew pack up their gear rather than saddle up to the bar and bask in the glory of their victory with his bandmates, he’s barely aware of the tiny earworm that begins as he’s manhandling one of his amps into his van. The lyrics swirl and tumble, unclear like they're shrouded in a fine mist just behind his consciousness. Undetectable. Untraceable.
Soon, they build in intensity. In vigor. Like someone so very gently turns the dial, a slow and meticulous increase until he’s humming along, still blissfully unaware but automatic all the same.
Curious, how words he hasn’t allowed himself to even dream about for nearly three years suddenly pop inside his brain. Even more interesting how they’re accompanied by a voice snuffed out of life in this realm ages ago; a voice that he’d give his own life just to hear one last time.
So it’s curious, indeed… how he can so clearly hear you.
Gareth’s breath is a sharp snap of a gasp, a harsh catch in his throat that leaves behind a burning he can’t quite swallow down. Not that he’d be able to, anyway – the sound of your voice as it rolls over those haunting lyrics in his mind zaps all the moisture from his mouth. He gently sets down the tack box, his muscles moving with such guarded precision that he’s terrified that if he so much as breathes wrong, he’ll lose it.
Hell, he might be losing it anyway.
So sorry you’re not here
Been sane too long my vision’s so unclear
His crystalline eyes are blown wide, searching the darkness of his surroundings with his darting stare; back and forth along the shadows and back again. Nothing appears, and just as quickly as the dulcet tones of your unique, sweet sound had come, it’s gone. Dissolved into the cold, dank air of the night so abruptly, Gareth wonders if he’s imagined it.
But he hasn’t. He swears that if he were brave enough to let his lids slip closed, he’d be sitting in his dad’s rickety lawnchair next to you. Breathing you in as you lean into his space and mark your genius annotations in the margins of that fucking notebook that he found in the clearing two days after you promised you’d come home…
And never did.
But that was almost three years ago.
He inhales shakily, blowing a long breath through pursed lips as his ears strain for any shred of your presence before giving up. Gareth bends at the waist, grasping the plastic handles before flinching back like they’ve burned him.
Your ethereal voice floats like smoke, stretching toward him like a claw ready to sink your nails into his exposed skin.
Now take a trip with me, but
Terror should rip at his insides, instinct should scream at him to run. But they don’t – all that consumes him is a desire to seek. Your lyrics are an invisible force, rattling around in his skull and easing his darting eyes to gaze down an alley off to his right.
Don’t be surprised when things aren’t what they seem
He doesn’t hesitate. The wet slap of rubber soles against damp asphalt crowds his senses as he speeds between the two buildings, farther into the dim catacombs of downtown Indianapolis. It's like he's called, pulled by a steel cable down this alley, leading him away from safety but towards everything he's been missing. Washed-out yellow light from far-off lamps fade to a milky orange, not nearly enough to allow for Gareth’s wits to remain.
Henderson would be furious, going back on his promise like that. Jeff, too.
But he can’t explain it; why he feels so much safer at the dead-end of this abandoned path between two unknown brick boxes – so much safer than he’s felt in three years. He knows it’s crazy. He definitely knows that he shouldn’t feel this way, that danger is ever-present and it’s important to stay aware, but how can he?
So, he searches. Over and over, his piercing stare blazes across old brick and withered vines of ivy, dormant given the season. Not a soul is with him, but impossibly so, he feels like he’s intruded in this space – like the invitation found from those delicate notes has been abruptly revoked. Gareth waits, willing the desperation in which he draws in every raw breath to stabilize, even just for a moment. Bones creak and tendons snap a soft protest in response to the most careful murmur of his name. Sweat matted curls whip around his face that has angled hard under the stress of loss and time.
The air in his lungs goes stale, holding it past his limit as his eyes scan over the unmistakable outline of you, beautifully backlit by what little light is left as night continues to descend.
“Hi.”
There’s beauty in the way his mind snaps into focus, like remembering all of the intricacies of a long lost melody. “Is it…” he begins, not even trusting his own voice to say it softly enough to not disturb whatever miracle allows you to stand in front of him, “I’m not dreaming, am I?”
Oh, fuck – that smile. That grin that blazes over your features, pinching those cheeks into sweet, shiny apples he could sink his teeth into. Christ, he’s missed it as much as he’s missed how you say his name.
“No, Gareth.” Your assurance makes his stomach swoop. “You’re not.”
“Y-you – ah, you’re – uhm…” He’s a stuttering fool, now overwhelmed with the countless conversations he’s had with Dustin about the Upside Down since you disappeared. It’s on the tip of his tongue, what he hopes to all hell is true, and if his lips would stop wobbling for a fucking second, maybe he could get it out to ask.
But – would it be the truth, or just what he wants to hear? There’s no difference as far as Gareth’s concerned, not right now.
He finds his voice. “Mayfield. You’re real.”
The way he trails off makes it feel more like a question than a statement, but he doesn’t dare correct it. He thinks the real you would know what he’s implying, what he’s trying to get at without being obvious. Because sure, that’s definitely going to outsmart the unimaginable evil that lurks around every corner and has haunted Gareth in his dreams for the last three years.
He cringes internally; Dustin’s gonna be so pissed at him, if he lives to tell him about this.
Or, perhaps not. Your owl eyes round in alarm, like you’ve suddenly connected those desperate dots he’s strung up as an offering. “I swear to you,” your hands come to your chest in defense, “I’m real.”
“Um,” a nervous hand rakes through sweat-matted curls; the war between caution and need has him belting in frustration to the gutters that start to plink with a light drizzle. “Fuck… fuck! Okay, uh…”
“Gareth,” you try again, taking a step nearer to where he stands, melded to the crumbling concrete. He reactively flinches, slipping on loose gravel as he takes an unbalanced step back. “G, please – it’s me, I swear.”
The young man chokes on a scoff. “I – Christ honey, I want that to be true so badly it hurts. I –”
“The Upside Down is gone.” It flies out of your mouth so fast, a tourniquet to stop the bleeding you hear in his tone. “I fucking swear to you, it is.”
He’s lost the air it takes to speak for a moment, forced out of his lungs like he’s been punched in the gut. “It’s gone?”
“Y-yeah,” you breathe, “G – it’s gone. We defeated Vecna, and –”
“But –” his eyes pinch shut with his abbreviated shake of his curls, “how do I know I’ve not been flayed and this is just…” Gareth trails off, his hands waving in wild circles in front of his face. “This is Vecna,” he croaks. “This is him, using m-my memory of you and projecting it and I’m imagining you telling me exactly what I want to hear. Right?”
He’s probably fucked himself, announcing to this heavenly creature in front of him what he most fears. If you are a figment of his imagination, if he has been flayed, he’s probably just sped up the process. It’s not funny at all how mad this is and trust him – he knows it.
But irrational hope sings through his veins, and it’s drenched in your essence, your flavor that he swears he can still taste on his tongue when his mind wanders late at night. A bark of sardonic laughter escapes anyway as he watches your mouth pop open and closed like a fish out of water.
“I –”
“Fuck,” the chuckle that spills over his lips is equal parts bitter and manic, “you’re – you’re not real, then. I have been flayed or some shit –”
“No!” you shout, taking a determined several steps forward to close the chasm between you. “No, G – please, listen to me, you aren’t flayed!”
The dark night sky is treated to a dramatic roll of baby blue. “That’s exactly what my flayed brain would want me to hear you say –”
“There’s nothing to flay you anymore!”
The vehement interjection isn’t enough to convince him, not yet; not until he spots the familiar winding your hands. That nervous twist of white-knuckled fingers, a carbon copy of you in his kitchen, in the doorway of his room, on the couch in the den and a half a dozen other memories flash before him like a sepia-toned movie reel. It’s impossible to ignore, that tiny little movement stutters the rhythm of his heart and softens the set of his jaw.
Gareth lets himself believe, just for a moment.
“I could prove it.” Conviction sets your stance into stone, and the power he feels rippling from your stare makes him shrink.
He’s nervous it won’t work, enough to stutter out, “H-how?”
You snort a derisive huff through your nose. “I don’t know, telling you something that only I would know?” Gareth cocks his head to the side, preparing himself to challenge the point, but he doesn’t get the chance.
“I could tell you th-that I was such a selfish, cowardly bitch to you that night I yelled all those horrible things in your face and that I was just afraid of you being there for me like you were.”
A shaky breath evaporates into vaporous tendrils, little puffs that dissolve as soon as they rise above your head. He feels a creeping rush of heat at the mere memory of that fight, shame is the same color red that flushes his cheeks. Similarly, you appear contrite, like you can sense that it’s not quite enough.
Gareth will admit it’s a damn good start, though.
Your shoulders square as you continue. “And – and um, I could live off of your pancakes and peanut butter dinners and fuck the brussel sprouts, right? Because you’re definitely a better cook than me, which is kind of infuriating if I’m being honest. Um, I think the thing with the dish soap might be the funniest shit to ever happen, other than you taking up running,” that has Gareth belting a groan amidst your feverish rambling, “and I uh, oh!” – your fingers snap in rapid succession – “I think it’s bullshit you’re the lead guitarist of your fancy new band!”
A self-assured smile crawls across your features, arms crossing over your chest as the exclamation mark while Gareth’s lips press into a frown. You can hardly contain your glee as you deliver your punchline,
“You would have made a much better pianist –”
“Oh, my god,” Gareth chokes on his own spit as he splutters over an incredulous laugh. “It is you, you complete ass.”
There’s still a heaviness that hangs in the air, a note of uncertainty that he chooses to ignore. He bridges the gap, arms outstretched and inviting and suddenly, full of you. Tightly holding to your body, he’s a mess of limbs and tears as he buries his nose into the crown of your head.
“Gareth, it’s me,” you mumble into the salted skin of his neck, nuzzling the jet-black vines surrounding the tip of his newly completed longsword tattoo. “I swear to you, it’s me –”
“I know,” he mutters as he finally allows himself to look upon your features that appear unchanged, frozen in time. “I can’t believe –” broad hands part your fringe, smoothing the strands off your face, “fucking Christ, honey, it’s you.”
You tip him a watery smile. “I’m here, G.”
He finally remembers his manners. Holding you at arm’s length, he scans over your form, scouring a blazing path up and down for any evidence of where you’ve been for the last few years. “Are you all right? Where have you –?” All of that lasts mere seconds before his brain shifts course, succumbing to desire and his own advice he shoved off on the crowd during the encore. “You know what, no.” A yelp bubbles over your lips as he pulls you forward, cupping his hand behind your neck and pressing his lips to yours in a desperate kiss. A sob full of years of longing wrenches from the depths of his throat when he feels the adamant molding of your mouth with his. “I love you,” he grits in between fervent gasps for air, “I love you so fucking much, you know that, right?”
Your fingers shake as they wind into the fabric of his tee, lips tangling for position in an enthusiastic dance. “I know you do, I know.” Tension pulls your shoulders for just a fraction of a second, and Gareth feels your spine straighten in the most subtle of ways. “H-hey, there’s something I have to tell you.”
Urgent kisses become endless, the taste of you is too intoxicating to stop. He tries to placate you anyway, the complete pushover that he is.
“Okay.”
“You gotta stop kissing me for a second,” a giggle bubbles over your lips, and then another. With no real urgency, you reiterate, “Just for a second,” before your mouth becomes pliant against his once more.
“Nope,” his lids slip closed as he smiles into your supple skin, “can’t do that.”
The moment his lips melt again into yours, an unwelcome feeling swoops low in his gut. It invades his insides, his surroundings, quick like the flip of a switch. However, the lights don’t fade – instead, a shadow descends, an inkblot of darkness shrouds the alley. Gareth separates himself slowly from the softness of your mouth, searching with bated breath for the reason why there’s all of a sudden a terrible fear that needles up his spine. That heavy cloak of foreboding is back, one in the same with what he felt on stage.
“Gareth,” his name is a muted end of a sharp, panicked inhale, “I –”
One moment he’s returning your wide-eyed expression with one of his own, and the next – he’s yanked from your arms with such force that it snaps his neck back with a sickening crack. His feet legitimately leave the ground as he’s propelled through the air in reverse, traveling at an ungodly speed until all motion ceases. Another groan, louder this time, is torn from his chest as he slams against the brick wall at the end of the alley. He’d cradle his head that explodes with fiery constellations of agony behind his eyes if he could move his arms, but he’s bound. Trapped at an odd angle with his feet still several feet off the ground with his back against pressed an unforgiving barrier of clay and mortar.
No, that’s not quite right.
Gareth’s senses come back to him in waves, and among the first is how unmarred the planes of the brick feel beneath the thin barrier of his tee. Where roughened edges should scrape and scratch at sensitive skin, he’s instead appreciating the absence of it. In fact, it feels firm but softer than what a brick wall should. His hands beg for purchase, to answer the questions that run through his brain a mile a minute, and the answer comes in the oddest of ways.
A set of long, leather-clad arms tighten around Gareth’s torso with such incredible strength, he’s rendered immobile, helpless as he hangs in the air. The cool press of chilled skin around his neck shocks the breath right out of him, those undead fingers tighten their hold and will his lungs to fight for their breath. It feels like the temperature has dropped at least twenty degrees, or maybe that’s just the adrenaline that’s causing Gareth to shake so violently as he tries and fails to get free.
A sinister rumble, a voice caked in the acrid smell of death rattles Gareth’s very bones.
“Try to be very still. It will all be over soon.”
Gareth goes rigid, all will to struggle drains out of his body and pools beneath his feet. His fate is sealed, it seems – a terrible thing to be in your arms and finally confess his love just to be severed from it and undoubtedly, from this earth. Leaving you alone. Again.
“M-mayfield –”
He goes to tell you to close your eyes, not to watch as whatever entity from the Upside Down literally flays him with these razor-sharp talons that dig into the supple flesh of his neck. The rasp of his voice shocks the beast, has it digging those claws in deeper to the point where he feels warmth run in jagged streaks over the column of his throat. A sharp burst of pain has him hissing, his stare locks on yours and he hopes you can see the terror in his gaze, hopes it’s enough for you to turn around and run for your life.
The soles of your shoes don’t hesitate, stomping across the alley toward Gareth rather than away, and if he could shake his head and not impart certain death, he would. He’d tell you to go, he’s dead where he stands anyway –
Only, the look on your face has him reconsidering. Really reconsidering. Like, almost feeling sorry for the villain that holds him hostage, because that fire that blazes in your eyes is downright murderous.
“Eddie!” There’s a madness in your tone, severe and intense as the furrow in your brow. Your timbre drops to more like a growl with how fiercely his name rips from your throat. “You insufferable asshole! We agreed, no creepy shit!”
The solid force behind Gareth cackles, and the sound is so familiar it sends an icy thrill up his spine. The binds that hold him loosen, and Gareth drops to cracked concrete, whirling around to have his heart shocked still. The young man’s gasp is strangled, baby blue eyes frantically ranking over the long gangly body of Eddie fucking Munson: his dead best friend – all sharp ivory lines and luminous skin that shimmers with an otherworldly glow that should be impossible. It is impossible, as impossible as that devilish glint that flickers in deep pools of black, surrounded by a mane of long onyx curls that somehow looks softer than he remembered.
What in the actual fuck?
Eddie’s Cheshire grin is fiendish; plump, crimson lips stretch across his teeth and Gareth’s ragged breath hisses its escape this time.
The younger man’s pupils dilate, his pulse bounds at the sight of the two long, razor blade canines that gleam like a threat in the low light of the alleyway. Loose gravel scrapes over every menacing drag of Eddie’s boots over asphalt, his proximity suddenly too close. Gareth inversely mirrors him with a stumbling shuffle back. Ebony ringlets bounce with a condescending tilt of his head, a penetrating stare from twin orbs that swirl with a wicked sort of amusement that’s familiar but at the same time, so very different.
What isn’t so different is that stilted chuckle that rumbles from Eddie’s chest, or the way that dimple pops in his left cheek from that fucking smirk that Gareth suddenly has the urge to knock right off his face. Especially as Eddie crowds into his space, holding his stare as he looks upon the younger man down the long slope of his nose and says,
“Heya, big boy.”
T O B E C O N T I N U E D