Never going Back ⋆ Stranger Things

4. The Devil

Content warning; use of homophobic language.

Saturday, March 22.

Steve and Robin spent all morning whispering amongst themselves as Oz pretended to busy himself with shelving the new tapes. Oz's excitement over The Return of the Living Dead and the potential movie marathon with Robin and Steve was long forgotten, having made way for the panic attack that Oz was working hard to suppress.

There were far too many things that Oz had heard and seen in his life that he wished he could forget. The sight of Chrissy Cunningham walking into Eddie Munson's trailer the night before now sat at the very top of that list.

Oz only really noticed how shallow his breathing had gotten once he felt a hand on his shoulder. Twisting quickly, he met eyes with a concerned Robin.

"You okay?" Her brows were pulled together, eyes wide, clearly filled with worry for Oz.

Oz stood completely frozen, arms full of drama movies G to L. He hadn't put any away in the last ten minutes. He was pretty sure he'd just been staring at the shelves like an idiot.

"Yeah, fine. Just—" he wasn't sure what kind of excuse to come up with, "—pretty bad headache. That's all."

"Right." Robin seemed anything but convinced, but nonetheless backed off. She gave Oz a quick nod before turning and walking back to the counter. A nod that was probably intended to mean something along the lines of 'I'm here if you need to talk', which was nice. Oz was sort of thankful that neither her nor Steve had made a big deal out of Chrissy's death yet, as odd as it was. Oz was pretty sure he couldn't stomach the idea of them discussing it.

Besides, Oz hadn't been lying about the headache. It felt like someone was digging a handful of sharp nails into his frontal lobe.

"I—uh," He mumbled while dumping the tapes on a random shelf. Problems for later. "I'm heading to the back. Sort the new tapes." Oz didn't look at Steve or Robin as he headed to the back, unwilling to see the probably-pitying looks on their faces. He didn't need their pity. The only person that deserved it was Chrissy, and it would do nothing for her now.

In the most fucked up way, Oz felt guilty.

It was an emotion he was well-acquainted with, and while he was usually in the business of blaming himself for things outside of his control this one hit him especially hard. He'd kept his mouth shut, and somebody was killed because of it. It was all too familiar for Oz.

Oz sat himself down on the floor of the back room, riffling through the box of tapes and taking them out one at a time. Slowly—slower than usual—he began sorting them based on genre. Usually he would immediately work to sort them alphabetically as well, but he wanted this quiet moment to last as long as it possibly could. He needed to give himself time to think.

The pressure on his forehead only began to get worse, despite the quiet he'd now surrounded himself with. Oz swore he could actually hear his head pounding. It had gotten to the point where he could feel his vision beginning to blur while he dug around in his pockets to find the strip of painkillers he packed that morning. Even if he'd long stopped believing in painkillers, or any sort of solution. Maybe a big, hard, thump to the head would fix him. Or an ice pick to the frontal lobe.

The pain had Oz delirious enough to genuinely consider it an option.

"Oscar." A deep, unfamiliar voice echoed through the small back room, making Oz's head shoot up in an instant. "Oz, please." The voice was lighter now, almost familiar. "You're a liar, you know?"

"What?" Oz scrambled up from the floor, looking around wildly to try and find the source of the voice. It sounded familiar—too familiar—to him. Like a voice he hadn't heard in years, but one he could never forget.