Alexithymia | STRANGER THINGS [ON HOLD UNTIL FURTHER NOTICE]

twenty nine | the nina project

With his head practically hanging off of the couch and the tips of his fingers just barely grazing the basement floor, Matthew Wheeler lightly snored and was the least bit unaware of the fact that– through the means of a radio that was on the other side of the room and the radio that was practically buried underneath all of the stuff that he kept in his backpack– Eddie Munson's voice could be heard saying, "Hey, Dustin, this is Eddie the Banished. You there?" After a couple seconds of silence, Eddie asked, "Dustin, can you hear me? Dustin?"

It was then that Nancy quickly sat up from where she laid on the floor and made her way over towards the radio as she heard Eddie say over the radio, "Earth to Dustin."

It wasn't long afterwards that Nancy raised the antennae to the radio and said into it, "Hey, it's Nancy."

In turn, Eddie said, "Wheeler! Hey. Um, I'm gonna need a food delivery, like, really soon, unless you want me going out into the world."

With a shake of her head, Nancy replied, "No. No, no, no. Don't do that. Just stay where you are, and we'll be there as soon as we can."

Eddie said to her, "Yeah, yeah, yeah. Listen, um... can you pick me up a six-pack? I know, it's stupid as shit, drinking right now, but a cold beer would really calm my jangled nerves."

It was then that Nancy told him, "Uh, hey, I'm gonna have to call you back." And just when Eddie started to respond to her words, she glanced over at Matthew and saw the way that he continued to snore to himself from where he laid on the couch that Max herself used to be on before she looked away from her brother and then made her way over towards where Dustin slept in a part of the basement.

Then Eddie said into the radio, "Wheeler? Wheeler?"

It was then that Nancy hit Dustin's legs and yelled, "Dustin!"

In turn, Dustin said to her, "Mm."

Then Nancy said to him, "Wake up."

After blinking his eyes, Dustin said, "What?"

Nancy asked him, "Aren't you supposed to be on Max watch?"

As he wiped his eyes, he said, "Yep. Yep, yep, yep. Sorry."

Nancy replied, "Okay, then where is she?"

As he pointed over towards the couch that Matthew was currently sleeping on, Dustin said, "She's right there. A second ago. I swear, I just dozed off for... an hour."

And while Dustin and Nancy were quick to head up the stairs, Matthew let out a groan when he heard a muffled voice from the inside of his backpack repeatedly saying his last name.

Without even bothering to open his eyes, he pulled his backpack out from underneath his head and opened it before he started to blindly search for his radio.

It wasn't until he'd pulled it out of his backpack that he could hear the sound of Eddie Munson's voice repeatedly saying his last name, which got him to quickly open his eyes and pull up the antenna before he asked, "Eddie? What's going on? You didn't get spotted by some cops, did you?"