The Perk, Wednesday Noon

[amitragic]

So Ulysses was still kind of broken up about the weekend. Not really about anything that had happened - because he seemed to be able to recall less and less clearly as time wore on, anyway - but there was this horrible weight inside him that he seemed to be unable to shake. The nightmares had stopped with the one he'd woken up from on Monday, but something else persisted.

And no amount of vaping seemed to be doing anything.

So today, as the morning began to turn into the afternoon, he could be found at a table near the back of the Perk, looking miserable with his giant coffee and his half-eated muffin.

You know, super sociable and all.

[ooc: Open like places in town tend to be!]

Comments

[shireisburning]

"You're welcome," Eddie said, knowing full well that wasn't sincere. "Long night?"

[amitragic]

"Long... everything," Ulysses hesitated, with a vague gesture with the hand that wasn't currently clutching his coffee.

[shireisburning]

"Dude, I'm so with you there," Eddie said, taking a swig of his coffee. "The drinking to deal with the everything is starting to be as much of a pain in the ass as the everything."

He was still going with you being as hungover as he was, Ulysses. What else was there to do in this town other than get shitfaced and play pinball?

[amitragic]

Smoke pot and feel sorry for yourself? Those were Uly's go-tos.

"I, uh... Have not been drinking." Much. "It was just, you know." Another vague gesture, trying to encompass the full weight of what he was about to say. "The weekend."

[shireisburning]

"Did something happen this weekend?" he asked. "Was it bats?"

[amitragic]

"... Why would it be bats?"

Why wouldn't it be bats, though, Uly?

[shireisburning]

"Because the last time I had a really bad weekend it was because of bats," he said. "Bats from a hell dimension, but bats nevertheless."

He was honestly so surprised he didn't become a vampire. That would have been his bad luck.

[amitragic]

Yeah, that sort of thing was exactly what Ulysses should have expected when he asked.

"Uh," he said. "Well, no. It was -- everyone was older, this time."

[shireisburning]

"And things didn't go great for you in the future?" Did he lose his hair? This guy did have great hair, and Eddie was an expert on great hair.

[amitragic]

"I'm pretty sure my world had ended."

He'd still had great hair, though.

[shireisburning]

"Oh, dude, bummer," Eddie said, giving him a sympathetic look. "I know how that is. Mine was on the verge of ending when I ended up here."

The only thing standing between Hawkins and total destruction was a bunch of kids in high school...and Steve Harrington.

"So were you, like, Mad Max out in the apocalypse trying to survive?"

[amitragic]

Ulysses had been about to say something about how he was pretty sure the world had ended and locked him out, actually, but right after his mouth opened for that he frowned and tilted his head, instead.

"... Who are you, again?"

Or at all?

[shireisburning]

"Oh, I'm Eddie," he said, holding out his hand. "Apparently I own the bowling alley-slash-arcade-slash pool hall."

[amitragic]

Ulysses was quiet for the beat it took for some things fall into place.

"Are you supposed to be Fast Eddie?"

... Oh right, and the handshake. He should respond to that now.

[shireisburning]

"I guess so!" Eddie said with a shrug. "I'm not that fast, though. I don't think."

He would have escaped the bats if he were faster.

[amitragic]

Ulysses took this in. "Huh." A beat. "You know, I guess that's at least better than Luke's being run by a guy called Duke."

He leaned back in his seat again.

"Uh, and, I'm Ulysses." Awkward finger wave. "Hi."

[shireisburning]

"Hi," Eddie replied with a smile. "Sorry you had an existential crisis over the weekend."

[amitragic]

And with that, Ulysses seemed to deflate a little further in his chair. He grabbed his coffee so he could cradle it with both hands.

"Well, yeah." He sighed. "Fucking Fandom."

(But it really wasn't just Fandom, was it?)

[shireisburning]

"Hey, man, the future is ever-changing, right?" Eddie said. "It might not even happen."

[amitragic]

Only Ulysses had been having what had seemed like strange pre-apocalyptic prophetic dreams right before the island had yanked him back from his world last year.

So he wasn't so sure.

But what he actually said was, "Yeah, I guess." He let go of the cup with one hand to card it back through his hair. (The curls flopped back into their original position almost immediately. This always happened.) "Sorry, I don't... mean to be a downer."

But he also couldn't help it.

[shireisburning]

"Nah, man, downer away," Eddie said with a wave of his hand. "I saw a girl murdered in front of me, got accused of said murder, and then discovered my town is on top of some parallel dimension all in the span of, like, three days. I didn't handle it great."

He ran away and hid in a boathouse belonging to one Reefer Rick.

"You're allowed a solid freak out session."

[amitragic]

As someone who'd started off his week telling his teenaged bestie how she hadn't been at a future reunion because she'd been presumed dead, Ulysses should probably have found it a little easier to react to that, but, no.

"Uh." See? "I don't -- I kinda doubt anyone would handle that well."

Ulysses himself would have fainted, with 100% certainty.

[shireisburning]

"Honestly, I surprised myself with how quickly I bounced back." It helped when there were about six kids looking at you to help them, and you didn't want to look like a bitch in front of Steve "The Hair" Harrington.

"And it was practice for landing on this weirdass island almost forty years in the future." Looking at the bright side!

[amitragic]

A beat.

"That explains the hair."

Look, it was an easy thing to latch on to, especially when Uly's poor brain wasn't doing so hot to begin with.