[ unsurprising. he thinks about billy. how billy had been in the upside down for nearly a year but was still, somehow, himself. just... number. that doesn't feel supernatural. that feels fueled by a need to survive. ]

The Upside Down... keeps you alive, man. [ he doesn't know how else to explain it, absently picking at the bedsheets. ] I should've been dead when Hargrove found me, but I wasn't... Lived for a good day or so after Dustin ran to get help. [ he shakes his head. if he'd been brought out, he'd probably have died instantly. he gets that now. ] It was hell, man. Pure hell. If it wasn't for Billy, I...

[ would still be there. begging for death. being twisted up by all that emotion, the toxins in the atmosphere.

and then he thinks about the two of them. the bare minimum to their own mutations. the lack of connection to the rest of the upside down. only vecna, because he's professor x on crack. ]

I don't think he ever died. Vecna's probably just one giant, mutated wound at this point.