Chapter Text
The light slapping of his face, and the repetitive mumbling of “Shit, don’t be dead” is what woke Eddie. He blearily blinked his eyes open, just to be met with the sight of his unruly hair in his eyes. Just as he was about to attempt to lift his arm to move it out of his eyes, he felt a finger lightly brush it aside, and that’s when he saw Him. He couldn't make out much, but one thing he could see for sure, was a mess of blonde curls, almost resembling a halo. He looks like an angel, Eddie thought.
“I promise you I’m not” the angel said, and Eddie’s starting to think he might’ve said that last thought out loud. A heavy sigh followed by “thank fuck you’re alive” didn’t let him ponder it too much. “Name’s Billy. We need to go, right now. I stopped the bleedin as much as I could, but shits going down and our chance out of here is closing, so we need to go, now”
It took Eddie a few seconds to process, but when he did, he was up so fast his vision swam and his head went fuzzy. A hand firmly grasped his shoulder, helping him stay upright, and once he could see again, helped pull him to his feet.
“We need to get to an opening, whichever is closest. They’re starting to close, and we need to not be on this side of them when they do.” the dirty blonde angel, Billy, said, his voice a bit raspy, “whatever’s going on, it’s got the bats distracted, but I don’t know how long that’ll last, so we gotta get going now” and with that, the he slung Eddie’s arm over his shoulder, which took a bit of maneuvering due to the backpack on his back with a bat sticking out of it getting in the way, and helped him stand balances for a moment.
Eddie wet his lips, trying to get rid of the dry feeling in his mouth “My trailer is how we got in, but we may be closer to the lake. There’s an opening at the bottom, we’ll have to swim” he said, his voice sound scratchy and dry.
As they were standing, Eddie heavily leaning against the dirty blonde to catch his breath, he began to notice him slightly favoring his right leg, and tucked that observation away for a later date. “I grew up in Cali, I may not be in as good a shape as I was then, but I think I can handle. What about you, you gonna be alright?” Billy asked,
Eddie thought a moment before slowly nodding, not trusting his voice to hide how little he believed it. With his nod, the two began walking, Eddie being helped heavily by Billy. After a while of walking, Billy started to more heavily favor his right leg due to Eddie’s added weight. It took a bit longer then it should have, but a few minutes later, the edge of the lake came into view. Once they finally reach it, Billy sets Eddie down to give them both the chance to catch their breath.
“It’s on the bottom, we should be able to see it when we swim down, it’s got a kind of glow to it” Eddie explained, panting a bit in between his words.
“Fuck, okay, you’re probably attached to your clothes, so that’s gonna make this difficult, but not impossible. Okay, fuck, think” Billy says, the last part directed to himself, starting to pace the edge of the lake.
“There’s a boat” Eddie blurts out, continuing when Billy’s head snapped in his direction “we took a boat, to get to the middle of the lake, it should be hidden in the trees near here” he said, watching as Billy starts looking around, and letting out a breath of relief when he finds it.
Billy gets the boat in the water, not without some struggle, and then helps Eddie in, before pushing it off the edge and settling in himself. After a moment he passes the oars to Eddie in favor of taking a few deep breaths and massaging his left leg, which now that Eddie looks, is riddled with scars where Eddie can see, Billy’s pants clearly torn and only going down to his kneecaps.
Once Eddie had rowed them to the right area, he stopped, waiting for Billy to make the next order. He didn’t have to wait long, “Okay, we need to hurry, we need to get through the rip, and we need to not drown. That can’t be too difficult right?” Almost the very second after those words were out of Billy’s mouth, you could see his regret.
Never question the difficulty, or more importantly, the ease of a task.
Seconds after the words left Billy’s mouth, a high pitched screeching sound came from the sky, causing both boys to look up. Far closer the comfort, and growing closer by the second, was a swarm of demobats.
“Fuck” Billy whispered “fuck, okay. Shit, we need to go. We need to go now. You go first, I’ll go after.” And with that, he not so graceful shoved Eddie into a standing position, and then gave him a clearly impatient but trying to be patient look. It didn’t take Eddie long before Eddie jumped in, the demobats getting far too close for comfort. They’d be reaching their boat in seconds, and Billy knew from experience that the water wouldn’t stop them much, and they were getting too close too fast. He knew they weren’t going to make it through without a fight, and Eddie wasn’t in any shape to fight.
Billy quickly swings his off backpack, opening the zipper just enough to take out the bat, before closing it back up and shoving it over to Eddie. “If anything happens and I’m not through that door down there before it closes, give that to my shitbird sister, her name’s Maxine Mayfield. Just do that for me.” He says, before taking a breath to calm his raving heart and positioning his hands on the bat correctly.
It wasn’t a question and he wasn’t asking, but Eddie still nodded and said “okay” nonetheless, hoping it’d bring the blonde at least a little comfort knowing that of nothing else, he’d get the backpack to her.
“okay” Billy whispered, more to himself than Eddie. “You need to go now, and don’t look back while swimming, it slows you down, so just go.” Eddie got himself ready to dive in, hesitating only a moment before Billy have him a glare that ended ended any retort he was about to give. He dove in, and Billy was only given a moment to properly turn towards the demobats before they were on him.
Billy’s never been more thankful he knew how to grip a baseball bat, because the demobats seemed desperate and if not for his grip, he would’ve lost it the second they hit, one hitting his chest and another biting his arm. He was quick to shake them loose before striking them both with the bat, hard enough to disorient them at the very least. There seemed to be 6 of them, which was both relieving and overwhelming. With the two demobats occupied, Billy turned to the other four, putting all his strength in every swing, so that if it met slimy flesh, it’d do as much damage as possible.
It was a few more minutes, and a few more bites to Billy’s skin before he finally bought himself enough time to jump and swim. Wasting no time, Billy took a deep breath and dove in, bat in hand only to be met with the sight of Eddie seemingly stuck, a vine wrapped around his ankle, on the verge of passing out from lack of air. Swimming as fast as he could, and pulling a pocket knife out of the makeshift shorts, and once he finally reached Eddie, stabbing the vine and cutting him free. Without thought or hesitation, Billy put a hand on each side of his face, putting his lips to Eddie’s and breathing out as much as possible into his mouth. Billy wasn’t stupid, he knew there wasn’t much oxygen in the air he was breathing into Eddie’s mouth, but it was the best he had at the moment.
It seemed to take Eddie a second to comprehend what was happening before his eyes drifted to over Billy’s shoulder, widening a second before Billy felt a bite on his left leg and latched on, doing far more damage then it would’ve had his leg been healthy. Billy quickly shoved Eddie through the closing hole, before turning around and stabbing the demobat any where he could. After a few stabs, it finally let go of Billy’s leg, and he waisted no time turning to the gate, noticing he’d drifted away during the attack. And the hole had shrunk drastically. Billy swam as fast as he could, desperation clear in his kicks. Just as Billy reached the hole, it seemed to pulse and grow just big enough for Billy to swim through, before closing the whole way behind him.