BILLIE JEAN ( eddie munson.. ) ✔

021. Sweet "Dreams" Are Made of This..

She wished she could have said something, but while her mouth did open, it remained agape, looking at this hellscape of a world. Her Eddie was here? Billie's been worried before, but now the worry doubled over. The forest around them was a graveyard. The road they were on was filled with vehicles beyond recognition, covered in vines, strangled to the condition of rusted metal. Above, thunder rumbled deafly and while a red lightning colored the storm, Billie sneezed at the dust dancing through the air of this world.

Barry climbed out of the car next and since Devin was shorter, he stayed on top of the wheel to help him up as well. Once their feet planted on the ground too, they stepped up beside Billie.

"I gotta give it to Dustin," she mumbled. "This Upside Down is somehow even scarier than he described it."

"He was also right about the Mirror Man and Vecna canceling each other out," Devin mumbled and as they turned to him, his siblings had to follow his gaze down to his arms. Barry noticed a more visible change first, reaching out and touching Devin's neck.

"Your bruises are gone."

"How are you feeling?" Billie asked, hopeful. Though they were grateful to see Devin free of the demon, now came the problem of making it through Vecna's territory without reminding him of this other curse.

"I feel...," Devin tried to become aware of what every single nerve end of his was experiencing at that moment. No tiredness, no unexplainable feeling that he was doomed, no fear without origin. "Good. I am feeling good."

Barry let go of him and stepped around to get to the car trunk and force it open.

"Get the walkman to Devin first," Billie called after him but they thought of the exact same thing because Barry had already tossed their only remaining walkman to his brother. They've taken a quick inventory of their range of items before setting on this rescue mission and this lack of music players was their only true issue. They were going to have to take turns, three minutes, each with their own mixtape tucked into a pocket of their wildly different jackets.

Billie brushed instinctively on hers, every once in a while, the pin from Eddie, perhaps knowing deep down, that out there, while his eyes unfocused in conversations with the others, he too fidgeted with that little Michael Jackson pin, which though he had to throw his vest at Steve and save his dignity he obviously cared too little about, he kept and stuck to the outside of his jeans' front right pocket.

Devin shrugged on the headphones and popped in his mixtape, turning it all the way up. He was listening to some calm jazz with a country tint, just about in time to not be aware of the monstrous screams coming from the skies, not until Billie and Barry both looked that way.

"What the heck is that?" Devin shouted over his music, pointing up.

"A welcoming party, if I have to take a guess," Billie raised her right hand up to her hair, just to stressfully brush it out of her face.

"Let's see what the Upside Down is made of then," Barry put on a backpack filled to the brim, one of the backpacks Billie had always kept on the ready in her room, in case she needed to move away again. Its purpose definitely changed. Now it carried weapons, water bottles, bandages, all while seeing a whole new world.

Barry tossed the sharpest shovel they took from their garage to Billie. She tested its swing range again, with the skill of a child who loved to play the warriors on playgrounds. It was not once that little Billie ran to Barry, hands full of splinters from the sticks she played with and he had to patch her up in an agonizingly long process. Time passed fast. Now he looked at her, not quite as tall as him, but definitely grown up. This Billie was never going to need him to the extent of calling him "Bear" again.