Worlds apart, hearts broken in two, two, two

[the_freak]

Arrival (slightly changed from TDM, Season 4 spoiler warning. CW: blood)

Eddie blinked and the world seemed to turn upside down (ha!). He was flat on his back, Dustin was no where to be seen, and the spores of the Upside Down had been replaced with a light flurry of snow. For half a second Eddie didn't feel that choking pain, and he wondered if he was dead.

For a moment he starred up at the sky, strained breathes crystalizing in the air. It was so much brighter here... So peaceful. He turned his head and caught sight of some shining thing. Transfixed by the datapoint, the pain shot back in sharp focus as he strained to sit up. Everything in him screamed to stop, but he needed to touch that thing. He fell more than once before managing to right himself and took unsteady steps towards it, fingers smeared with blood as he finally made contact, and a flood of information assaulted his all ready shot nerves.

"...What the...shit?" he rasped once it released him, stumbling over as his legs refused to support him any longer. He looked down in confusion at his blood staining the snow. Fucking aliens. Sure. Why not at this point???

Audio- A Few Days Post Arrival

Heeeey, um...I don't really get how this thing is supposed to reach anyone without an antenna or anything but uh...can anyone hear me?

How do I even find a frequency?

This is fucking bullshit man.

[There's a clattering as the device is tossed away in frustration, Eddie sure it's not working.]

Comments

[in_extremis]

At the first stirring and murmur, Tony didn't yet move, focus shifting to Eddie and eyes only narrowing at the indistinguishable noises he was making while the screen in front of him continued to flicker. The question was a little clearer, making Tony snort and finally drop the phone against his chest, though he waved away any answer that he might have. "Good of you to join us, Mr. Munson," he said instead, sounding weary like Eddie was late for an appointment. He really had taken his time coming around; Tony's ass was asleep, and Billy was long gone. "You probably shouldn't move around much yet. You came in with some pretty gnarly damage. Bites, it looked like." The teasing warmth that had been in his voice was suddenly obvious in how abruptly it was gone then, chilling with the intense study of his cool blue eyes. They lingered mostly on that wound on Eddie's neck, before meeting his eye again with an inquisitive tilt of his head.

[the_freak]

Mr. Munson.

Eddie snorted reflexively. The only people who called him that were teachers. But...when had he told anyone here his name? His head tilted suspiciously, trying to think back, but his arrival before now felt like a blur.

Bites? Right- Eddie glanced down at himself and the various bandages. Damn they had gotten him just about...everywhere. And there was definitely a heavy pause, Eddie's face not doing much to conceal that he was attempting to form some sort of reasonable cover. "...yeah uh- animal...swarm. You know," he dismissed, like that was something that happened all the time.

"Where'd the uh- the guy in the- the big metal guy? In every sense of the word- by the way. Where'd they go?"

[in_extremis]

That wasn't a particularly satisfying answer, and there weren't a lot of reasons to lie about where a bite had come from. These ones didn't look particularly erotic, which really narrowed down that already slim list. It had Tony tilting his chin down, eyes narrowed, like he might see right through whatever Eddie was hiding.

"Out at the cleaner's," he replied. "We'll have to settle for something a little more casual for now, if you'll pardon the impropriety. We won't be going far for dinner, anyway, so I won't tell if you don't. You do eat, right?" Maybe that was a little obvious, a weird question to ask a baseline-presenting humanoid.

[the_freak]

Yeah, it wasn't one of Eddie's proudest lies. He could do better with more time, weave an entertaining story. It'd still be completely obvious bs, but at least it would be fun.

"I eat," Eddie confirmed, looking confused by the question, or maybe he was just still over thinking Tony's other words. "Wait...are you-?"

[in_extremis]

Taking is time, Tony finally drew his feet back off of the bed to roll up to his full height, where he stared at Eddie again for a pointed beat, letting him reconsider if he wanted Tony to find out later that he was lying about eating, before dropping to sit on the edge of the bed instead. The phone he had been using was placed carefully at Eddie's side, with a flick of Tony's finger and nod as he drew the hand away to point out, "That's yours." Turns out, there wasn't much in the bloody snow that revealed what might have happened to the guy, just a standard issue communicator and a much less standard, well-preserved electric guitar. Tony was pretty sure those didn't bite.

It was only when he relaxed again, slouched over on one hand, that Tony answered, "Metal in every way. I think. I haven't been on Twitter in a couple years, is that a good thing?"

[the_freak]

Who lies about eating? Eddie stared right back, and arched a brow. He shifted to accommodate the other, but frowned at the...whatever that was that was placed at his side.

"Uh...pretty sure it's not," he countered, thinking he'd remember having something like that. Or was this some kind of gift? "...What is it?"

That was quickly forgotten in favour of the need to defend the notion of metal ever not being a good thing. "It is beyond good. Highest of fucking compliments, trust me on that. Not something I give out every day." And then backtracking- "You fucking flew man....And what's a Twitter?"

[in_extremis]

The phone was Eddie's whether he wanted it or not, so Tony was prepared to let it lie there, out of his hands. What had his eyebrows slowly creeping up was the apparent ignorance of just what it was, then of Iron Man or Tony Stark, then of Twitter. Most other signs pointed to this being a Terran of at least a local dimensional cluster, up to and including that distinctive t-shirt he had shown up in.

Tony let out a breath, and some hopeful expectations that he didn't realize he had been holding with it. Maybe this was good, maybe that meant Eddie also didn't even know what vampires and zombies were. "Hey, you were there, so did you," he answered with a wry smile, giving another flick to suggest they not worry too much about the Twitter thing. "That's going to let you keep in touch," he did address the phone. "Not a lot of people here, better to stay connected."

[the_freak]

"I wasn't exactly instrumental to keeping up there," Eddie countered with a smirk, but then grinned privately at the recollection. Henderson would have a fucking field day if he knew. Which...dulled that enthusiasm right back down.

He picked up the device, turning it over absently. "With the other "heroes"?" he asked skeptically. "Is there someone to talk to about their acceptance criteria, or-?"

[in_extremis]

It wasn't easy to tell exactly how old Eddie was, until that grin betrayed a wonder that Tony only really ever saw in kids, and how quickly it was replaced. Not a kid for much longer then. Maybe that revelation should have made Tony more aware that it wasn't entirely appropriate for him to try to undercut that falling expression quickly, "I'm sure you can keep it up when it counts," but the mechanisms of his mouth were regularly independent while his brain was doing more important work. He cleared his throat, giving another wave of his hand, and suggested, "I wouldn't think too hard about that, drive yourself crazy. I don't know what's worse, the comparing yourself to the people who you think should have been higher on the list, you know, or the wondering what it was that you did that got you on it in the first place, because this is a really shitty prize for a good deed. So, do you stop, then? No, of course not."

[the_freak]

Eddie caught his tongue between his teeth, a positively wicked smile jumping to his face, and he laughed, groaning a little as the action shifted his sides. "Never had any complaints," he assured easily.

He was pretty sure the only worthwhile thing he'd ever contributed was those last few hours before he found himself here. If these Agrii thought they'd caught themselves some kind of hero based off that they were sorely mistaken.

"Says the guy who flew right outta some comic," he teased.

[in_extremis]

That seemed to be a dangerous thing to have said, because Tony's smile in return was slow and wry, a fangy smirk with a secret promise that Eddie apparently wasn't going to get to hear just yet. "Your good deed for the day is getting some rest, heal up so you can stop looking so pathetic," Tony said instead. "And if you don't make me wait too long doing that, maybe I can tell you about a guitar I found, and some people you should really meet. If you're into comics."

[the_freak]

Eddie snorted, not sure some rest was going to much to make him look that much less pathetic, but that retort was quickly over shadowed by the eager way his eyes lit up at the mention of the guitar, hardly even hearing the rest.

"My baby's here??" He did the opposite of rest, attempting to sit up and search it out. Belatedly he pointedly lay back, still practically vibrating with want. "Is she all right?"

[in_extremis]

There wasn't any doubt left about where the guitar had come from then, and Tony breathed a laugh with a hand up like he might have shoved Eddie back if he didn't figure it out soon enough for himself. The hand stayed where it was, fingertips pinning down Eddie's chest to make his point, and he promised, "She's in excellent hands. Listen, I showed up naked, they must like you a little bit, you've got something here worth not bleeding out over, so don't undo all of this hard work. If I could have left you out in the snow and saved myself a day, I'm going to be pissed."

[the_freak]

Eddie put on a pout, but pointedly relaxed back into the bed.

"Naked, huh?" he reflected with a small smirk, arching a brow and teasingly looking the other over. "I dunno, if I had to guess, sounds like you got stolen from a much more fun time than I did," he countered.

[in_extremis]

"My body was extraordinary back then, you have no idea," Tony promised, sounding like this was a lofty academic address with one hand still raised to pin the concept. "But you're in no state to get your blood pumping too hard, that's a sordid tale you'll have to earn. You might be lucky to be here, I don't know, I don't know how many magical doctors were nearby the scene of the crime. There's a pattern there, too, not just "heroes", however you want to define that--" He took a sharp breath and bit his lip with a shrug like this was enough information for Eddie to extrapolate what kind of pattern Tony was suggesting.

[the_freak]

"Heh, yeah. Not a whole lot of those standing by," Eddie scoffed with a grin. "Man...Henderson's going to flip when I tell him." Whenever that was.

But Eddie felt a sense of relief settling over him that most people probably didn't get from being kidnapped by fucking aliens. He was going to live. They'd put him back eventually if he did a few good deeds or whatever, hopefully in time to grab his diploma. The charges were all dropped in Eddie's fantasy, a handwaved detail that he didn't want to acknowledge just now. Just like the matter of Vecna and whether the party had succeeded in stopping him.