Steddissy written for @puppy-steve, who has been sending me filth all day. 😌🙏
Rating: E | WC: 852 | Tags: PWP, daddy kink, squirting, Steve Harrington has an oral fixation, multiple orgasms
Fic beneath the cut or read on ao3.
Divider credit
Chrissy had never been so full in her life. Jason hadn't been small, but he was nothing compared to Eddie Munson, who had been fucking her for the better part of an hour now. Every thrust made her moan, made her pussy grip tighter around him. She wanted to move but couldn't with the way Eddie's hands gripped her wrists behind her back.
And then Steve was there, holding her hips while he devoured her. His tongue slipped down to where Eddie was buried deep inside of her cunt. He licked where she was stretched wide, then dragged his tongue back up to her clit.
She'd lost track of how many times they'd made her come like this. Steve's face was wet with come, both hers and Eddie's, where he had licked it out of her earlier. His eyes were glassy.
It was like Steve was a man possessed. Like he got off on tasting her cunt the same way he got off on Eddie holding on to his hair and fucking his throat. Like tasting Eddie smeared on her pussy was as good as— better?— than getting it from the direct source.
"Eddie, I can't," Chrissy keened. She tried to twitch her body away from Steve's mouth, but his hands were on her hips and his mouth was on her clit again. "Please, please—"
"Please what?" Eddie's hold on her wrists tightened. "You want more? Want it harder?"
"I— I—" Chrissy cried out as Steve sucked hard at the same time that Eddie drove up into her. "Fuck— please, yes—"
"Come on our boy's face again, and then maybe I'll let him fuck you the way you want it. You both have to earn that, don't you?"
Chrissy practically screamed as the edge of Steve's teeth grazed over her clit. She was going to be so sore later, when the post orgasm endorphins had worn off. "One more," she panted.
Steve took that as permission to grab her hips. He licked eagerly, used his lips and tongue and teeth. He could tell when she was ready to come again by the way her pussy spasmed around Eddie's dick, by the way her clit got firm and practically twitched in his mouth. He sped up, sucked harder—
Chrissy came with a sob and another rush of fluid that soaked all three of them. Only then did Eddie release her wrists and pull her hands up towards his body, for her to hold on around his neck.
"You're not finished yet, babydoll." Eddie nipped beneath her ear as Steve lifted her off of his cock. "Stevie deserves his reward, doesn't he?"
"Yes," Chrissy breathed. She should be embarrassed the way her legs were spread over Steve's arms. She knew what a mess she looked like, knew the evidence of what they'd done was still dripping out of her body even though Steve had tried his damnedest to clean it up with his to mouth.
"Can I?" Steve asked. He wasn't asking Chrissy, he was asking Eddie, who moved to hold Chrissy's thighs for him instead.
Chrissy would definitely not be able to move like this.
"You've been such a good boy for daddy," Eddie purred. "You want to fuck her full, too, baby? Leave her dripping with both of us?"
Steve whined, nodded, moved to line up. "Please. Please, daddy."
Eddie kissed the side of Chrissy's neck before nodding. "Do it."
Steve drove in with one hard thrust. Chrissy screamed, wriggled, could only hold on as Steve pounded into her cunt again and again.
"Keep your hands on my neck, or you don't get to come again," Eddie murmured. Chrissy's nails dug into his skin like she was assuring him she wouldn't leave.
Little punched out sounds spilled out of Steve's throat. He leaned forward and pulled one pretty pink nipple into his mouth.
Chrissy was coming again, her body shaking hard and her hips tipping towards Steve as much as she could. "Steve— Steve—"
"Daddy," Steve whined. He buried his face in Chrissy's chest and sped up. As he came deep inside of her body his teeth dug into a mark Eddie had left on her skin earlier.
"Good boy." Eddie carded his fingers through Steve's hair and kissed over Chrissy's neck. "Feel good, baby?"
They both nodded. Chrissy's hands unclenched from Eddie's neck so she could wrap her arms around Steve instead.
"Did so good. Both of you did so good for me." Eddie smiled and ran a hand down Steve's back before settling on the back of his neck.
They lay there, letting the sweat cool on their skin. Once Chrissy and Steve both had use of their legs again they all moved out of the wet spot Chrissy had made.
Eddie left the two of them to get water and gummy bears. "I'll clean you up," he said, smiling at the way his loves held onto each other.
Instead of going to the bathroom for a damp washcloth Eddie slipped down the bed until his mouth was even with Chrissy's pussy again.
Steve wasn’t happy with the way Munson was treating one of his kids. So unhappy in fact, that he forces himself into their club leader’s van to see what he’s getting up to with Chrissy Cunningham, and maybe it’s a good thing he’s so paranoid because it might just save her life.
Or, the one where Chrissy doesn’t die in the Munson trailer, and, despite the world-ending, the king(former) and queen(current) of Hawkins High cannot take their eyes off Eddie Munson
Read on AO3 (content warnings in notes on A03)
Chief Powell knew that just because this was the third body he’d seen, it wasn’t going to be any easier to look at. Andy had been the one who called, panicked and crying as he ranted about Chrissy Cunningham and freaks and broken bones. Eventually, they had gotten a location out of him and were on the scene in under 10. Powell and his officers found Andy sitting on the front step of local drug supplier Rick Lipton’s house. Powell cursed himself for not thinking to look there, leave it to him to be outsmarted by a fucking high schooler at a time like this. Andy had a rag soaked in blood wrapped around his hand, he noted to have Callahan inquire about that when other matters were figured out.
Andy was still shaking when Powell leaned down to him, “Where is he?”
Wordlessly Andy stood and walked quickly around the side of the house. They found Jason sitting on the ground, facing the slope down to Lover’s Lake, holding Patrick McKinney’s body. Powell choked back bile as he approached, he could hear Jason breathing heavily as he cradled his dead friend in his lap, staring out over the lake. He didn’t need to be close to tell that Patrick’s body was identical to Anne Carver’s and Fred Benson’s. The gaping eyes and broken limbs were enough to draw Powell to the conclusion that they had been killed by the same person. Thing. Whatever it was.
Both Patrick and Jason were soaked, they must have been out in the lake when it happened. Powell’s head was swarming with what questions to ask. He knew this was going to fall back on Eddie Munson and, knowing he shouldn’t have any conclusions at this point, it was getting less and less believable that he was the one doing this.
Powell had been having run-ins with Munson for years, but rarely were they because of violence. Some mild vandalism, the occasional light drug charge, and a few schoolyard fist fights that, in the end, Eddie never started. Powell wouldn’t go as far as to say he was a good kid, but he had a hard time believing he was as violent a killer as the current events made him out to be.
But right now wasn’t the time to believe anything, there was more to deal with. He waved the coroner over as he crouched next to Jason, trying to gently explain what needed to happen. It was going to be another long night, the sooner he got started questioning Jason, the sooner Jason could go home.
*
Chrissy was nearly halfway around the lake when she had to stop. The adrenaline began to wear out and her muscles began to burn, she could barely catch her breath in the cold air. She was far enough away that she hoped walking to the tree-lined shore would be fine. She needed to find Eddie. They had agreed to meet on the other side of the lake, but that was when Eddie had a boat and Chrissy didn’t have a mouthful of someone else's blood gagging her.
The moon was high, lighting up the entire lake for Chrissy to see as she carefully crunched along the small cliffs of the shore. She couldn’t see or hear Jason and Andy, and she was sure that Patrick was dead. But there was no sign of Eddie, not even the boat.
Chrissy couldn’t help the panic that rose in her chest as she searched for him. What if he couldn’t swim? She hadn’t asked, she just assumed but it wasn’t a given. Or what if he hit his head falling in? Or his clothes were too heavy and dragged him under? Chrissy was starting to hyperventilate at the idea of Eddie’s limp body sinking to the bottom of Lover’s Lake.
“Eddie?” She whispered as loud as she dared into the dark, not able to help herself, “Eddie are you there?”
She moved further down the shore, calling out for him again when the sound of loud splashing in the direction she had just been made her jump.
“Eddie?!” She kept herself from shouting, rushing to the noise as fast as she could without slipping and falling into the lake.
“Chrissy!” He called after her as she approached, “Oh, fuck, Chris are you okay?”
She threw herself into his arms before answering. He was soaking wet, but she didn’t care, she just held on to him. She felt his head drop to her neck as he held her back, shaking.
No. Shivering.
“Fuck,” Chrissy muttered, not moving, “Eddie, you’re soaked! You’re gonna fucking freeze to death.”
“Yeah,” Eddie said, teeth chattering, “It is a bit chilly, huh.”
Only he would make a joke right now. Before Chrissy could respond the sound of sirens cut through the night air, making them freeze. They were headed for Rick's house. For Patrick.
“We need to go,” Chrissy said, stepping away from him, she wasn’t sure where to, just not there.
“I think I know a place,” Eddie said, stepping up away from the lake towards the woods, he paused thinking for a moment, “We’re on the North side of the lake, right?”
“Rick’s house is on the East side right?” Chrissy asked, Eddie nodded as he looked around the woods, “Then yeah, we’re at the North end right now, or near it at least.”
“Okay, yeah, if we just had a little bit more Northwest we’ll reach Skull Rock,” Eddie said, “It’s not a house, but it’s at least sheltered.”
“Works for me,” Chrissy said, grabbing his hand and beginning to walk through the woods Northwest, she hated how cold his fingers felt. Before they got very far, Eddie spotted the boat he used to escape, rocking gently halfway beached on the shore.
“Hold on,” Eddie said, looking around before darting out into the small clearing of the shore and grabbing the rope tied to the bow, looping it tightly around a tree. He clumsily covered it with a tarp folded in the bottom of the boat, “Just in case we need it again,” he told her as he climbed back up the shore, taking her hand again and continuing towards skull rock.
They had been walking for a while, neither of them really leading, just heading in a direction and hoping they’d know when they were close enough. A twig snapping off to their left, made Chrissy freeze and Eddie duck down, pulling her with him. They held their breath as they looked through the trees, waiting for voices or flashlights. Nothing, and then another snap of a twig, and then a relieved sigh from both of them as they caught sight of the whitetail carefully stepping through the brush.
“Fuck,” Eddie shook his head, pinching the bridge of his nose, Chrissy could feel his heart beating in her palm. He looked up and over at her and paused, “Chrissy, are you hurt?”
He brought a quick but gentle hand to her face, tilting her chin up to look her over. She suddenly realized what she probably looked like.
“It’s not my blood.” She assured him, the confusion in his eyes clear, “It’s uh, yeah, it’s not mine. I’m totally, mostly, okay I promise.”
He held his hand there for a moment still before dropping it and standing, helping Chrissy up as well, “I’m making you explain when I’m less cold,” He shivered and continued walking, squeezing her hand.
Eventually, they made it to Skull Rock. The moon lit up the small clearing around it. Carefully they stepped into the open, worried about being so exposed. But when no other shoe dropped, they moved in closer, crouching down to take cover between the cluster of boulders. It wasn’t warmer, but being out of even the slight breeze helped enough. As they went to settle on the ground, Chrissy realized that while Eddie’s hair had dried, his clothes were still soaked.
“Wait, come here,” She stopped moving, backing out from under the rocks where she could stand, Eddie followed easily.
“What’s up?” He asked, worried something was wrong.
“Take your jacket off,” Chrissy slid her hands under the shoulders of his jacket, helping him slide the heavy wet leather off. She laid it over a boulder, hoping the cool air would dry it by morning. He watched her in confusion, not sure what she was doing, “Take your shirt off, too.”
She nodded to his black shirt, stuck to his skin. She began unzipping her cheer jacket. She had gotten it sophomore year, back when her feelings about her body were even worse than now, so it was several sizes too big for her and probably even Eddie.
“Hey, uh, Chris,” Eddie said, fidgeting nervously as he watched her unzip her Jacket, “It’s not that I don’t want to, but I don’t think this is the time or place.”
“What?” She stopped, her jacket bundled in her hand, raising her eyebrow at him.
“Uh, what?” Eddie said, shaking his head, trying to backpedal.
“Take off your wet shirt and wear my dry jacket,” Chrissy clarified, feeling heat rush to her cheeks, “You know, so you don’t freeze.”
“Yeah, no, yeah,” Eddie muttered, “I knew that, totally.”
Chrissy rolled her eyes, but the blush didn’t stop. Especially when Eddie did what she told and pulled his shirt off. Chrissy hated herself for staring at him as he struggled for a moment to get the wet fabric off. He stretched his torso up and she couldn’t help but look at the tattoos on his chest and one she couldn’t quite see on his ribs. She didn’t have time to take him all in, her eyes just reaching the top line of his hips when he was free of his shirt and she quickly glanced away, holding out her jacket to him and swallowing hard.
He stepped closer, but instead of taking it, he grabbed her hand pulling her closer, “Here,” He made her look up at him and, using the hem of his wet shirt to wipe the dried blood from around her chin.
She watched his eyes, focused on her mouth as he carefully wiped away the blood, trying not to be too rough. Even without looking, she was keenly aware of how shirtless he was right now. When he was satisfied, he dropped his hand, using the other to tilt her chin and look her over.
“There,” He smiled, meeting her eyes, “a little less Carrie-esque.”
“Thank you,” Chrissy wasn’t sure if the redness in her face was visible in the light, if it was he didn’t say anything, instead he took the jacket she was offering, easily sliding it over his shoulders and zipping it up. It was tight on his shoulders and biceps, but it fit enough.
“How do I look?” He stepped back, holding his arms out for her to examine.
“Drier.” Chrissy said, and then, “Sorry I can’t offer you my jeans, but I don’t think they’ll fit.”
“Oh, so you want me in your jeans, is what I’m hearing?” Eddie asked, raising an eyebrow and throwing her the dumbest smirk.
“Oh god,” Chrissy groaned, snatching the wet shirt from him, “Will you shut up.”
He laughed, chasing after her as she laid his shirt over the rocks next to his jacket, “I’m sorry! That one was just too easy. Thank you for the jacket, though.”
“Of course,” she went back to the spot between the rocks, crouching and climbing into the little shelter, “It would be embarrassing for you to die of hypothermia after all of this.”
“First the seat belt,” He started, sitting next to her on the ground, “And now this? I'm grateful to have you around to keep me from dying a lame death.”
“Anytime,” She laughed shortly, then yawned exhaustion starting to settle over her.
“Hey, come here.” Eddie, who was leaning against the wall of rock, unzipped his borrowed jacket.
“What are you doing?” Chrissy questioned, but still moved towards him.
“Get in,” He laughed, “You’re pretty and smart, but not immune to hypothermia.”
He held open the baggy sides of the jacket, offering his bare chest to her. Chrissy blushed, but he was right, she was just in a short sleeve right now, plus their body heat together would keep them warmer.
“You really didn’t have to call me smart and pretty,” She rolled her eyes, trying to hide her nerves with snarkiness. She climbed against him anyway, sticking her arms into the jacket and wrapping herself around his bare torso, resting her head against his shoulder.
“Hm, yeah,” He agreed, zipping up the bottom of the jacket around them, locking them together, “But I wanted to.”
Chrissy didn’t reply, she just shook her head and moved closer to him. She could feel both him and herself warming up already, sleep threatening to take her soon. Eddie shifted, wrapping his arms tighter around her and settling in against the rock.
A moment passed and then, “Chris, you still awake?”
“It’s been 30 seconds,” She scoffed, smiling against his skin, eyes closed.
“Are you okay?” He asked, sounding serious.
“What?” Chrissy was confused, they had just been over this that she wasn’t hurt.
“I mean, like,” He struggled to find the right words, “Emotionally? A lot just happened, and… and Jason is your boyfriend and the others were your friends. I just… I don’t know that I would be okay if I were in your position.”
“Hmm,” She thought for a moment, she had been blocking out most of her feelings about the situation, trying to survive the night first, “Probably not, honestly.”
She could feel Eddie press his cheek to the top of her head, when he didn’t respond she continued, “Andy has always been…sick. Just the worst of them, so I’m not surprised he tried to hurt me, but Patrick? He’d always been the nicest, obviously he had his problems, but he never really seemed like Andy or Jason.”
Eddie hummed, acknowledging that he was still listening but not wanting to interrupt.
“And, ex-boyfriend, by the way.” Chrissy felt relieved saying it for the first time, “He… he isn’t him anymore. I mean, like… I loved him a lot when we first got together, but I’ve changed a lot, and he… hasn’t, I guess. Or, well, he has, but he’s changing into his father, which is scary to think about.”
Eddie nodded, thinking about Jason’s dad, the whole town knew him. He was a pastor at the local church.
“He’s been so stifling lately,” She choked back tears, the sudden loss of her first love actually setting in, “I’ve been wanting to end things for a while, I guess. But, I don’t know, I guess I was scared to. He’s so public about me, us, I didn’t want to embarrass him, not right before graduation. I hoped things would end when we went away to school, but those plans changed, and then… then he started talking about getting married and all this other big crazy stuff,” Chrissy shuddered, Eddie held her tighter, “I just can’t do it anymore.”
Realizing she had spilled more than intended, she tried to apologize, “I’m sorry, Eddie, you don’t need to deal with all that right now.”
“Hey, no,” He assured her, running a hand over her arm through the jacket, “No, it’s okay, I asked. I want you to be able to talk about this, I’m sorry I didn’t ask sooner.”
“... thank you, Eddie.” She sniffed, awkwardly wiping away tears and then going back to wrapping her arm around him.
“Anytime, Sunshine,” He pressed a kiss against the top of her head, relaxing against her, “Anytime.”
*
Erica didn’t know whether to be pissed or anxious about her brother’s absence. At first she hadn’t cared, just covered for him, coolly. She had done so for the past year, knowing she’d get something out of it when he returned. This was longer than he had ever been gone without at least calling or swinging by the house. Now, with the two, three according to the news, high schoolers dead in the past couple of days, Erica couldn’t help the nagging feeling that her big brother could be in trouble.
Her parents were already on the couch watching the news when she came into the room, eager to catch the statement Chief Powell was giving.
“...as many of you know by now, the Roane County Line received a call a little after midnight,” The chief sounded professional, but still anxious as he read off his premade statement, the ever loyal Officer Callahan standing behind his shoulder, “reporting a homicide out here on the lake. Officer Callahan here and myself arrived first on the scene. We made our way to the shore of Lover’s Lake, about ten yards from that house you see behind me. It was there that we found the victim, an 18-year-old senior from Hawkins High, Patrick McKinney.”
Erica recognized the name, it was a teammate of Lucas’s. He was a senior, so friend felt like the wrong word, but Lucas had mentioned him at least once or twice around the dinner table.
Powell regrettably continued his statement, sounding uncomfortable as he began to describe the body, “his limbs…his body, it was uh, disfigured…”
Erica flinched, as much as she reveled in pretend gore and violence, the idea of someone around her brother’s age being mutilated made her sick.
“There was an eyewitness on the scene, who will remain anonymous. We have also identified a person of interest.” Powell held up a black and white photo, “Eddie Munson.”
Erica narrowed her eyes, leaning forward as Chief Powell encouraged anyone with information to come forward, the reporters all clamoring for more information.
There was no way that scrawny freak was the one doing this. Erica just couldn’t believe it. Lucas and Dustin had been involved in crazy shit the past few years and Erica knew about all of it. Eddie, however, had never fallen into that category. She wished she could talk to them- Lucas or Dustin or, hell, even Eddie. She hated this, she hated being 11, and she hated being treated like a kid.
“I know you’ve all got a lot of questions,” Powell continued, “And I’m going to answer as many of them as I can. Two o’clock Town Hall, where anyone from the Hawkins' community is welcome. But right now, I’ve got some work to do, and I appreciate your patience and understanding.”
The reporters began barking questions as Powell walked off towards the cruisers behind him, Officer Callahan following and flashing an awkward thumbs up. Erica’s mind raced with worried thoughts of her brother and friends as her parents began making plans to go to Town Hall already.
*
Nancy, picked them all up again in the morning, secluding Dustin and Steve to the back bench seats with all of Eddie’s groceries.
Robin was panicking, as usual, and Nancy was doing her best to cool her down. Steve didn’t know when Nancy decided she liked Robin, but in true Nancy fashion, the switch was noticeable. Not only did Rob get the front seat, but now instead of sighing and rolling her eyes Nancy was actually responding, and trying to help. Steve couldn’t say he was thrilled at the prospect, but he trusted Robin and knew she would never spill his feelings about Nancy and the breakup to anyone let alone the leading lady of Steve’s emotional turmoil herself. He also thought Nancy could use a friend.
In the past year she’d only had Johnathan, all the way in California, and school friends that she tended to treat more like co-workers. Everyone needed a Robin, he decided, but Nancy couldn’t have his.
As they rounded the corner, coming up on Rick’s house, Nancy cursed. Half standing in the back of the car didn't give Steve much of a view, but the news van and the amassing crowd could only mean one thing.
Everyone climbed out of the car. They couldn’t have Eddie, Steve told himself. It couldn’t end here, after all they’d done to keep Eddie and Chrissy safe. Before he could truly begin to panic, Dustin’s walkie clicked on,
“Dustin, can you hear me? Wheeler?”
*
Steve didn’t want to hit Dustin. He just wanted to snatch that stupid broken compass out of his hand and bash it against the nearest rock. If it was Skull Rock, that would just be a bonus, because Steve didn’t think they were ever going to make it there at this rate.
“You do realize that Skull Rock, it’s a super popular make-out spot?”
“Yeah, so?” Dustin bit back, not looking up from the compass.
“Yeah, well, it wasn’t popular until I made it popular,” Steve told him, sure, Martha Jones had shown him the spot freshman year, but he’d still been the one who made it known. “You’re heading in the wrong direction.” Sick of following the direction of a literal child, Steve broke off making a beeline for Skull Rock's actual location.
Dustin called after him, trying to throw them off again, but Steve wasn’t having it. The rest of the group brushed past Dustin to trail after Steve, Lucas threw an apologetic shrug back to his friend.
It was only a short walk to Skull Rock, once they were going the right way, and Steve announced their arrival,
“Bada bing, bada doom! There she is Henderson. In your face man, in your stupid cocky little face.”
“Doesn’t make sense,” Dustin kept arguing, unable to accept that Steve might be right for once.
“Yeah, yeah, even with it staring at you in the face, you can’t admit it,” Steve teased, “can’t admit that you’re wrong you little butthead.” He would have felt bad if the kid didn’t rightfully deserve an ego check, and if Eddie even gave him a chance. Jumping down off one of the rocks that made up the titular skull, Eddie announced,
“I concur, you Dustin Henderson are a…” He paused, and Chrissy appeared from behind him and Eddie helped her down. “total butthead.” he finished, with Chrissy’s hand still tucked into his.
“Jesus, we thought you were a goner,” Dustin let out a sigh of relief and forced Eddie into a hug. Chrissy stepped back, watching fondly as they reunited. Steve was also watching, and accepting that the horrible dread settling in his stomach was a beast of his own making. He’d been the one to invent Skull Rock, and now he had inadvertently pushed his first-ever gay crush to get with the most perfect girl to ever set foot in Hawkins.
Steve never thought he’d want to punch a child, try as Dustin might- but he really, really wanted to punch freshmen Steve.
“Yeah me too, man,” Eddie admitted as they pulled apart.
Steve and Eddie’s eyes met over the kid between them. Steve did his best to imitate the typical guy nod, but all he could think of were the hours he and Chrissy had spent alone, scared and cold. He could see them, clinging to each other for warmth, and comfort, and it was a make-out spot- Steve needed a nap, or maybe a strong drink, anything but the awkward nod that Eddie gave in turn.
Steve let the girls handle interrogating Eddie and Chrissy. He was too distracted to even attempt to help, but he got the gist. The thing with their lights, Venca in his attic, had been him killing Patrick. So they had a target, but no way to reach it.
“We just need to sneak into the upside down and drive a stake through his heart,” Max shrugged.
“A stake? Is he a vamp-” god, had he really zoned out for that long? “Is he a vampire?”
“It was a metaphor,” Max rolled her eyes.
“ I say we should chop his head off,” Lucas offered.
“Shouldn’t a gun work fine?” Chrissy asked, incredulously.
“All of the above,” Nancy, cut them off, “but we can’t do any of that until we find a way into the upside down.”
“We need El to get her powers back,” Max said
“Everything was, like, way easier,” Steve told Eddie and Chrissy, unable to meet either of their eyes, “there was this girl. She had superpowers.”
“Superpowers,” Eddie repeated distractedly, “yeah, you mentioned her.” He glanced down at Chrissy by her side, but she had actually been listening to Steve, trying to wrap her head around superpowers still.
“Hey, uh, Henderson’s not cursed is he?” Eddie asked, pointing his chin over to Dustin pacing back and forth, apart from the rest of the group.
“Cursed? No,” Steve shrugged off, “Mental? Absolutely.”
“Boom!” Dustin shouted, despite the fact, Eddie was a wanted man and they were only partially hidden in the woods. “Bada bada boom,” he continued with a whisper dramatically. Steve blamed Eddie for this sort of behavior, the theatrics were a bit over his head. Yet the way the kids took after Eddie was adorable.
“I was right.” That bitchiness was all Steve, unfortunately, and he was starting to hate how this sounded in his head. “Skull Rock was north,” Dustin continued, despite the very obvious fact that they were already at Skull Rock. Steve tried to explain as much, but the kid was on a roll. He started explaining something about electron magnets and fields, and Steve was lost. Then, despite Steve’s best attempts to get them somewhere safe or at least planned, Dustin wanted to head back into the woods, after some unknown gate.
“What say you, Eddie the Banished?” Henderson asked with a flourish.
Eddie stepped forward, out of the shadow of the rocks, and let Chrissy’s hand drop from his. He stared off at the sun coming through the trees, dramatic as always.
“I say you’re asking me to follow you into Mordor, which…” he focused on Dustin, “if I’m totally straight with you I think is a really bad idea, but, uh, the shire…” Eddie glanced behind him towards Chrissy, “the shire is burning, so to Mordor it is.”
And that seemed to be final.
With Eddie following, Dustin was off like a shot, and everyone else fell into line or feared being left behind.
“What is Mordor?” Steve asked aloud, though apparently the only one who was confused.
“Don’t worry about it,” Chrissy reassured with a warm smile and a hand on his arm as she passed him to keep up with the rest, “Let the nerds worry about that, we’re just here to look pretty.”
“Yeah you are,” Eddie smirked, as he rushed back to collect the water and walkie that he’d stolen that morning. Chrissy flushed, but Steve refused to and instead, turning his embarrassment into annoyance, said,
“Get your stuff dude, let's go.”
For a moment, Steve thought he was doing well, treating Eddie like anyone else, or one of the kids even, but then he ran to the front of the group, dragging a giggling Chrissy behind him by the hand, and Steve allowed himself one deep self-loathing sigh.
*
“You gotta be shitting me,” Steve sighed when they burst out of the tree line, steps away from stumbling into the lake.
“I thought these woods looked familiar,” Eddie said bitterly, lifting a tarp to reveal the boat he had borrowed from Rick.
“This is confounding,” Dustin exclaimed, and Steve wished he’d just talk normally sometimes. It turned out not to be that confounding, however, as Nancy was able to quickly piece together that Venca must be leaving behind gates when he attacked, and their trek through the woods was becoming a full-on voyage.
Unspeaking, Eddie and Steve moved together to get the boat situated in the water. Eddie fumbled it and muttered an embarrassed apology when it splashed Steve.
Robin got on first, ignoring the hand Steve held out to steady her, and instead used both of the boys' heads for balance. Nancy followed close behind her, snatching up the offered hand and claiming a seat towards the front of the boat, and Eddie crawled on behind her. Once stable, he turned back to help Chrissy on, with one hand holding her around the waist and the other grabbing her hand.
The kids and Steve were left on shore. He saw himself getting left behind, and quickly pushed the boat out, planting one foot in the water to do so, and practically threw himself on board.
“Hey!” Dustin whined when he realized he was being left behind.
“Sorry,” Steve shrugged, “not enough room.”
“Besides someone’s got to watch Max,” Nancy added on, shooting him a look like he was supposed to be supporting her.
“It’s my goddamn theory!” he complained.
“Listen to Nancy,” Robin warned, then claimed that Nancy was in charge. Steve was more worried about rowing than logistics, but he never really thought of Nancy being in charge. Sure she was one with the plans, but that didn’t mean any of them really knew what they were doing. That much was evident as they rowed out into the middle of the lake watching for the compass to give some sort of signal.
When it began to spin rapidly they slowed and radioed the kids back on shore.
Since it appeared that they’d found the gate, and no one else was going to do anything about it Steve took off his shoes, quickly followed by his socks.
“What are you doing?” Nancy asked, sounding worried.
“Somebody's gotta go down there to check this thing out,” He explained, “Unless one of you can top being a Hawkins High swim co-captain and a certified lifeguard for three years, then it’s gotta be me. No complaints alright?”
“Hey,” Eddie shrugged, “I am not complaining,” He dumped out the bag he kept tucked inside his jacket and wrapped it around one of their flashlights, “I do not want to go down there.”
Steve stood, rocking the boat as he moved, and when Eddie looked back up he was met with the expanse of Steve’s bareback. No sir, Eddie was not complaining even a little bit. Hawkins had not been wrong to pick Harrington as their heartthrob and he couldn’t help but try to save the image in his mind. He wanted to rub it in all those girls who’d gone out with Steve that Eddie had gotten a piece of something that was theirs, that he could enjoy Steve Harrington the same as all them.
For a moment, a burnt-out dream reared its hopeful little head, and Eddie remembered days where he’d thought of guys, men, taking him by the hand and pulling him along- not drunkenly, or hornily, but lovingly and joyfully.
He looked over at Chrissy, who was nervously watching the water and squeezed at her hand. She squeezed back, eyes locked on him.
It was okay, not every dream had to come true. Because here was Chrissy Cunningham, the sweetest person Eddie had ever met, who apparently had one hell of a bite attack, and she was looking at him.
Suddenly Eddie felt a bit guilty for checking Steve out. He had honestly assumed everyone was when Nancy started gawking, but Chrissy hadn’t even wanted a peek.
“Hey, Good luck,” Eddie said and looked up at Steve, which was a bad decision. Steve turned back to him, shoulder and chest on display as he reached for the flashlight, and Eddie couldn’t help but think of running his hands over that skin. Chrissy was right there, but then again Steve was straight, right, so looking could hurt. With the flashlight gone, Eddie needed something to do. He needed a smoke.
“Thanks,” Steve breathed and tossed his shirt back at Eddie, who caught it but set it aside to pull out a cigarette and lighter. When he tried to light it, however, Robin plucked it from his mouth and tossed it in the water with a short,
“Gross.”
Chrissy let out a disappointed, “awe.”
Steve took a few quick breaths, preparing himself, and just as he launched from the boat, Nancy called after him,
“Steve?” but it went unheard.
*
Dustin, Max, and Lucas anxiously waited and watched at the shore. It had been almost a whole minute since Steve disappeared below the surface of Lovers Lake.
“Come on, Steve,” Dustin watched through the binoculars, knowing he was running out of time. Steve’s record was barely two minutes, and that was in the shallow end of his pool, sitting stock still, not swimming to the very bottom of a lake, “C’mon…”
Dustin found himself counting down the seconds when the sound of radios and beams of flashlights began cutting through the dark wood.
“Shit,” Lucas hissed, grabbing Max’s arm, “Down! Down.”
The three of them dropped to the forest floor, hiding behind a fallen log. They watched as the people crept closer, shouting to each other about noise at the shoreline.
“Dustin! You are a goddamn Einstein!” Robin’s voice shouted through the walkie before Dustin could switch it off, “Steve found the gate-”
“Cops,” Max observed the whoop of a siren cutting above the chatter.
Dustin cursed, gritting his teeth.
“We can’t let ‘em find Eddie,” Lucas said, eyebrows furrowed as he tried to think of a plan.
Max was quicker, glancing around the woods before making a decision.
“Stay with me.” She said, hopping up from the cold ground, “Hey, officers!”
Dustin and Lucas hushed Max like the cops couldn’t possibly have heard her screaming up the hill at them.
“Over here!” She threw her bag over her shoulder, “I found the killer! This way!”
The boys groaned, cursing as they jumped up from the ground and followed Max as she darted away from the shore and into the woods.
*
Cold enveloped Steve, as bubbles rushed up around him.
It had been so long since he’d swam like this, in the cold even when his bones ached for sleep. It had been common practice when he was on the swim team when they met through the winter at the crack of dawn. Most swimming he did nowadays was when the kids ambushed his house in the summer, declaring pool days whenever they could. How could he deny them, when the pool his parents kept up went otherwise unused?
He dived deeper, feeling the pressure building in his ears, but with the light, he could see how close the bottom was. The lakebed was littered with old trash, a sunken boat, and picked-clean fish skeletons. Amongst the refuse, the gate made itself easily known as a bright red light emanating from it. Steve stared down and looked like a giant red eye glaring back up at him.
With a shaky hand, he reached out and brushed the veined membrane with his fingertips, causing something on the other side to reveal itself, flashing darkly against the light.
Startled by the revelation of another living thing down there, Steve pulled away and then pushed off the floor, dropping the flashlight in his rush. He reached the surface gasping for air and spitting out,
“I found it,” along with a mouth full of water.
“It’s down there?” Chrissy confirmed, unsure if she should be happy or weary.
“I found it, yeah,” Steve repeated, the cold getting to him as air blew through his wet hair, “I found it.”
“Dustin, you’re a goddamn Einstein,” Robin said into the walkie when something jerked at Steve's ankle.
*
The three kids sprinted as fast as they could through the brush, leading the police away from where they had left Eddie and the others. Dustin could hear them being shouted after, the voices getting closer and closer as he began to run out of stamina.
An unfortunately placed root sent Dustin flailing to the ground as his shoe caught on it, his flashlight clattering out of his hand. Lucas cursed, stopping immediately as he noticed his best friend fall, turning to go back.
Chief Powell was on Dustin in an instant. “Hey there,” He panted, grabbing Dustin by the shoulders. Dustin hung his head, knowing they were caught but grateful it was them instead of Eddie or Chrissy.
*
Steve hardly had time to breathe, let alone think, before something was dragging him back down into the lake and towards the evil red glow emanating there. In the panic, and the silence of the water Steve was able to focus in on something wet and strong wrapped around his ankle. The vines- he thought of the vines covering the wall of the cave the kids had dragged him into, and the way they’d tried to trap them. This one wasn’t holding him in place however, it was dragging him through the gate he’d found, and flipping him onto his back as he reached the other side.
Above him the sky was dark and stormy, flashing that same warning red as the gate, like blood boiling over. Steve managed to get back on his feet and take in his withered and waterless surroundings before a warbling screech echoed around him. Against the dark sky, he could hardly make out something flying above him, just hearing the beating of their wings as they circled in closer.
Desperate for some sort of protection, he grabbed one of the oars in the boat next to him, trapped in vines, just in time to swipe out when one of the bat-like creatures swooped down. Three of them descended, lashing out with their whip-like tails. For a moment, Steve managed to beat them off, keep them far enough away, until one caught him around the neck.
He went down, the bat lifting him just enough to rip away his balance and lay him out flat, knocking the breath out of him. The other bats continued to dive at him, their claws catching at his sides as he tried to work his fingers under the tail tightening around his neck.
It was fruitless. He couldn’t breathe.
The other bats landed on either side of him and sank in their dagger-like beaks shredding open his stomach. He could hear the loud wet sound of his own flesh being ripped open, and he knew there was no way this was not the end.
Steve wasn’t happy with the way Munson was treating one of his kids. So unhappy in fact, that he forces himself into their club leader’s van to see what he’s getting up to with Chrissy Cunningham, and maybe it’s a good thing he’s so paranoid because it might just save her life.
Or, the one where Chrissy doesn’t die in the Munson trailer, and, despite the world-ending, the king(former) and queen(current) of Hawkins High cannot take their eyes off Eddie Munson
Read on AO3
Chapter 1 - The Champion
Chapter 2 - Crime Scenes and Chicken Parm
Chapter 3 - The Clock Starts
Chapter 4 - The Hunted and The Haunted
Chapter 5 - Speak of the Devil
Chapter 6 - The Dive
Chapter 7 - Bats out of Hell
Chapter 8 - Love, Get Away Driving, and The End of the World (pt. 2)
Steve wasn’t happy with the way Munson was treating one of his kids. So unhappy in fact, that he forces himself into their club leader’s van to see what he’s getting up to with Chrissy Cunningham, and maybe it’s a good thing he’s so paranoid because it might just save her life.
Or, the one where Chrissy doesn’t die in the Munson trailer, and, despite the world-ending, the king(former) and queen(current) of Hawkins High cannot take their eyes off Eddie Munson
Read on AO3 (content warnings in notes on A03)
The living room was bright when Chrissy woke, having slept longer than intended. She groaned when she tried to sit up, her entire body aching from sleeping directly on the hard floor. Looking around the living room she found it empty. The nests of beds were still on the floor, on opposite sides of the coffee table. She could tell no one had slept on the couch in her absence. She felt bad about that.
Carefully she stood, wincing as she stretched out her sore body. She spotted the bag she forgot Steve had bought for her sitting next to the couch on the floor. Grabbing the bag she headed to the bathroom, deciding to take the shower she didn’t get the chance to last night. On her way to the bathroom, she heard Steve and Eddie speaking lowly in Rick’s bedroom. The door was cracked open and Chrissy was able to get a glimpse of them sitting on the bed holding a deck of cards. She darted into the bathroom before they could notice her, she wasn’t trying to sneak around, she just wanted to avoid any conversation.
Luckily Rick’s bathroom was in decent condition. When they first showed up at the house Chrissy had found Windex and a rag sitting on the counter, heavy spots of clear dried up on the glass. Both Chrissy and Eddie came to the conclusion that the police had come with a warrant for Rick mid house clean. Eddie had joked that they should have let him finish before putting him in cuffs, but at least the room that had the potential to be the nastiest in the house ended up being the cleanest.
Chrissy found a stack of towels under the sink and took the one with the least stains on it, shaking it out for fear of hiding spiders. She turned on the water, letting it heat up while looking through the bag Steve brought her. It was his mother’s clothes but Robin had picked out the items for her. It held a pair of jeans with a belt and a plain T-shirt as well as some socks and in the very bottom a pair of underwear with the tag still on - something only a girl would think of. Chrissy made a note to thank Robin for packing this for her. There were also a few half-empty bottles of soap that they had probably snagged from Mrs. Harrington’s shower. Chrissy stripped and slowly folded her old clothes into the bag. When the water was suitably hot enough Chrissy stepped in, the water instantly turning her skin red.
Chrissy didn’t get out of the shower until the water began to run cold, realizing all the hot water in the world wouldn’t cleanse her of the memory of last night. Slowly she dressed, drying her hair as much as she could with just a towel, and stared at her bare face in the foggy mirror. She frowned at herself, hating the way she could hear her mother's nagging voice in her head. ‘You look tired,’ she would have said. Of course she looked tired, she was being hunted by a creature from a parallel dimension, mascara, and blush weren’t going to hide that.
Deciding she couldn’t stall in the bathroom any longer, Chrissy stepped out into the hallway, the cooler air feeling good against her skin. When she looked down the hall to see if Eddie and Steve were still in Rick's room, she found Eddie alone. He was in the same spot as she had seen him earlier, but instead of playing cards, he had fallen asleep. She watched him for a moment, his face wasn’t quite peaceful, every few seconds he would twitch, furrowing his eyebrows and grimacing in his sleep. She debated waking him up, but before she could come to a decision she heard Steve calling her name in the other direction. She turned to see him at the end of the hall, he waved her over with a nod of his head.
“How are you feeling?” Steve asked her as she reached him in the dining room, he had a shoebox on the table in front of him.
“Fine,” Chrissy knew it was a lame answer, but it was better than awful, “thanks for the clothes, by the way, I appreciate it.”
“Of course…” He hesitated, she could tell he was trying to gauge where she was at, “any more visions since last night?”
“No,” She wasn’t sure if the nightmares counted as visions, but she didn’t feel like talking about them.
“Okay, well…” Steve figured he wasn’t going to get much out of her right now, “here’s a Walkman. Music worked for Max, so it should work for you too. And I grabbed some tapes from my house and Eddie’s van if you want to pick one out.”
“Thanks,” Chrissy offered a tight smile, immediately picking up the Queen tape she had put on in Eddie’s van.
“Will that work? Me and Rob can swing by the store too if you need us to.” Steve assured her.
Even when she was being standoffish he was being nice to her, “No, this is perfect, thank you.” This worked last time, she knew it would work again.
“He was terrified by the way…Eddie I mean,” Chrissy’s head snapped up from the tape. Steve was watching her intensely like he was still deciding how much to reveal. “He didn’t sleep for a second last night, just stayed up and watched you.” Cracking a smile, he kept talking, “I think he’d fist-fight Vecna for you. He’d do…anything for- to protect you and he hates that he can’t promise it won’t happen again.”
Chrissy felt tears prick at her eyes, she opted not to say anything for fear of them spilling over.
“We- this group, we get stuck together,” Steve explained, “That’s the only way this works- we all care about each other enough to stay alive and I know you’re scared and I know you're having a hard time trusting anyone right now, but… you and Eddie got dragged into this together so you’re, like, extra stuck together, so you need to talk to him. All he wants to do is keep you safe, he’s… he cares a lot, and I really think you should talk to him.”
“I want to. I just don’t know that I can be the same person I was yesterday, I… I'm just so scared, Steve, I don’t know what to do.”
“I know, I’m not going to pretend to know how it feels, but I know you're scared and he-” Steve searched for the right words, “he’s played a pretty big part in keeping you alive. He’s a good guy. So, you might not want to cut him loose just yet.”
Steve walked out, leaving Chrissy alone in the dining room staring down at the Queen tape in her hand, Eddie’s tape. She put it into the Walkman, and slipped the headphones around her neck, ready to hit play if she needed to.
Chrissy was still standing at the counter, milling over Steve’s words, when Eddie woke up and came out of the bedroom. She looked up when he stopped at the corner of the hallway.
“I’m sorry.” She said
“I know, I’m not mad,” She knew he would say that, “I’m just worried.”
She knew he would say that too.
“I shouldn’t have been like that last night,” Chrissy picked at her nails, embarrassed as tears began to choke her up, “I just… I know it’s not fair and I know you didn’t do anything , but it felt so real , Eddie. So fucking real.”
“Hey, no,” Eddie said softly, reaching out and then dropping his hand, “You don’t need to explain yourself to me, this is a weird fucking situation and I get it, okay?”
Eddie ducked his head when she wouldn’t look up at him, lowering himself to get in her eyesight.
“Chris?” He tried, “Please, everything is going to be okay.”
“I hate how nice you are,” She sniffed, meeting his eyes, “It’s not fair.”
“It’s easy to be nice to you, Sunshine.” He offered, reaching out again and gently taking her hand, stopping her from tearing at her nails.
He held her fingers lightly, hesitant. She didn’t pull away but he didn’t want to push it.
“Everything’s gonna be okay,” He told her, she could tell he wanted to tack an ‘I promise’ to the end of his words, but was grateful he didn’t.
*
Robin slammed the passenger's seat door behind her, large backpack in hand.
“What the hell is that?” Steve asked when she disappeared under its size and weight.
“Uh, my preparedness kit?” She said like it was obvious.
“I’m sorry, your what?” Steve laughed. Leave it to Robin’s ridiculous nature to make him feel better even when people were dying, and Steve was breaking his own heart.
“My preparedness kit!” Robin defended, “My dad was a Boy Scout! Preparedness is important! Especially when fighting a literal demon!”
“Prep-aired-niss?” Steve sounded out the word, over-enunciating each syllable, and started the car. “Is that even a word?”
“Yes, it's a word,” Robin grumbled, trying to shove the bag in question down by her knees but it was too full.
“No, it’s not,” Steve denied, “What in there is going to help us fight a demon anyway?”
“Uh, a flashlight,” Robin argued, “That’s pretty useful, and there’s a pocket knife somewhere in-”
“A pocket knife! You want to take down Vecna with a pocket knife?!” The idea of getting close enough to the psychic-teen murderer to get him with a tiny knife was horrifying, but Steve couldn’t help from smiling brightly.
“Well, it’s better than nothing!” Robin argued back before dissolving into peels of laughter.
Steve smiled proudly. He knew Robin found him funny, they were always cracking each other up, but making her laugh right now made him feel normal, good even. They trailed off into a comfortable silence. Robin turned up the radio and they soon were pulling into Steve's driveway.
Steve desperately wanted a shower, a change of clean clothes, and two minutes where he wasn’t thinking about Eddie Munson. Robin put something on the TV and settled herself in, while Steve went upstairs to do just that.
He had looked so pretty that morning, Eddie. Cold water rushed over Steve, flattening his hair, and he knew there was no getting Eddie off his head.
They’d passed the morning together, both waking up before Chrissy. Or Steve had woken up, but he didn’t think Eddie even managed to fall asleep. In the morning, after he pulled himself off the hard floor too early in the morning and ran home to grab supplies, he’d found him lying sprawled across Rick’s bed. His hair was splayed out around him in a dark halo. It was frizzy and tangled. Steve had been so careful not to touch any when he sat, but Eddie quickly rose, groaning all the while, and that mass of curls brushed his cheek. The bags under Eddie's eyes were concerning but didn’t look that out of place given the gloom settled around him and his typical dress. Steve had managed to find a shirt from his own closet that wasn’t too offensive to his taste. Seeing as it was just a black t-shirt, Steve didn’t know how it could offend anyone.
They’d sat there, a careful distance kept between them, and played cards as the morning light filtered through the blinds. Steve had done his best not to think about the fact that Eddie was wearing his clothes and failing. It didn’t matter. Eddie was Chrissy’s, or close enough to it.
Steve watched the water spiral down the drain. He shut off the shower and blearily made his way to his closet and put on the first thing he grabbed.
The laundry basket of Chrissy and Eddie's stuff was on the couch next to Robin, folded neatly and waiting to be returned to its owners. Steve moved it out of his line of sight and crumpled next to her.
“I’m sorry,” he frowned, curling around himself, hesitant to fully lean on Robin.
“For what?” she asked, stroking a hand through his hair, pushing it out of his face.
“It really, really sucks… the whole Eddie thing,” he admitted, “and I’ve just been…pushing you all school year to go after Vickie, and I just, I get it now.”
“It's really okay,” She told him, shuffling to tuck her feet under him. “You were just trying to talk me up, and I mean… It helps, sometimes, to at least dream of hope.”
“Chrissy’s just really good, you know?” Steve said, “I like her, I do, I just…”
“Also hate her,” Robin nodded wisely.
“No, not even that,” he shook his head. “She’s great and great for Eddie, and I want to be her friend, but it hurts.” Robin didn’t know what to say without saying everything so she wrapped an arm around him and pulled him close. “But I think Nancy hurt worse.”
“Halloween?”
“Halloween,” he agreed.
“She’s been weird, with all the upside-down stuff again,” Robin pointed out.
“She’s just being Nancy,” Steve shook it off, pushing harder into Robin, and she took that as her cue to shut up and take a nap with him.
*
It had been a long and boring day at Rick’s house. Chrissy and Eddie had been getting sporadic updates from Dustin as they prepared to break into the Creel house until a couple of hours ago when the radio silence started. Chrissy could tell Eddie was anxious about his - their- friends breaking and entering into the supposed Vecna house. She had tried to get him to sit down to watch a movie to keep his mind off of it, but both of them had been thoroughly over movies by this point, having watched several today already and it wasn’t long before Eddie was up and pacing around. He needed to do something with his hands.
That’s how they had ended up playing Rummy. She hadn’t asked him, instead she just gathered the deck and sat down at the kitchen table to shuffle. When he paused to raise an eyebrow at her sudden and silent action, she just nodded at the chair across from her, scooting it out with her shoe.
That was five rounds ago. He was starting to relax, his leg had stopped anxiously bouncing at some point and they had fallen into casual - i.e. non Vecna - conversation. She doesn’t know who had started talking first but they had ended up on the topic of family. Eddie had easily steered the attention away from his own home life, simply stating that he loved and was grateful for his uncle, and asked about Chrissy’s instead. She had also been hesitant, making a deal with herself to tell him about her bitch mother at some point, but that was a rant for later. Instead, she got to talking about her little brother.
“...and, oh my god, he’d adore you!” Chrissy said, waiting for Eddie to play a card.
“Me?” He raised an eyebrow, “Really? I figured your brother would be more interested in the type of guys you hang around.”
“You mean like Jason?” Chrissy said as Eddie discarded, “Yeah, no. I mean, Ryan used to really look up to Jason, but recently he’s been kinda getting into his own thing.”
“Ah, so Ryan’s not into the whole basketball and preaching thing?” Eddie snorted.
“No, not particularly,” Chrissy rolled her eyes, drawing off the deck, “He’s been really into fantasy stuff lately, he even mentioned playing that dragon game your club plays.”
“A Cunningham wants to play DnD?” Eddie asked dramatically, “I never thought I’d see the day.”
“Haha,” Chrissy mocked, “Believe it or not, but not everyone in this town is a carbon copy of their parents.”
“Well, congrats on breaking the chain,” Eddie smirked up at her, “You should bring him by sometime.”
“What?” Chrissy tilted her head, looking up from her hand.
“Ryan,” Eddie clarified, “If he’s been wanting to play DnD, when this is all over, you should bring him by the club sometime. We’ll teach him how to play.”
“He’s 11?” Chrissy wasn’t sure Eddie was aware how hard teaching an 11-year-old could be.
“Never too young to be introduced to the devil.” Eddie joked, shrugging.
“That’s exactly what my mom would say,” Chrissy scoffed, thinking about her mom ranting and raving about a kids game in the kitchen.
“I bet,” Eddie laughed, leaning back in his chair, “You should come, too. I could see you as an elf, they're the pretty ones- and maybe a druid? but I don’t know, maybe you’d really like to punch something- fighters are always fun.”
Chrissy bit back a smile, trying not to react to him basically calling her pretty, “I don’t know, I’m kind of a slow learner with stuff like that.”
“No, really, you should come,” Eddie insisted, and then, “It’d be fun, and I mean, what’s gonna happen? You think one of the guys is gonna be impatient with you? I’m in charge, I’d like to see them try.”
Chrissy laughed as he puffed up. Before she could respond the loud crunch of tires on gravel made her turn her head over her shoulder. They hadn’t been expecting Steve or the others tonight, but even if they had been, it didn’t sound like Steve’s car. He had been driving in slow and parking close to the tree line to avoid anyone noticing his car.
“That didn’t sound like Steve’s car,” Eddie vocalized the exact thought Chrissy had.
“Hold on,” Chrissy stood, dropping her cards on the table, “I’m gonna check it out.”
Slowly she approached the front window, keeping towards the wall to avoid being seen from the outside. Carefully she pulled the edge of the curtain to the side, trying to see who had pulled up in the dark. What she saw made her stomach drop .
Jason’s black Jeep Cherokee was sitting in the driveway. Chrissy couldn’t see him or who else was with him, but the back gate was open and she could see some movement.
“Eddie, we need to go.” She dropped the curtain and walked quickly back towards him.
“What?” He asked standing and nearly knocking over his chair, Chrissy jumped forward, grabbing the back of it and keeping it from hitting the ground. Both of them flinched hard, anticipating a crash that never came.
“It’s Jason,” She said, sitting the chair upright and grabbing her cheer sweater from the back of her own chair, “We need to go.”
“Fuck, fuck. ” Eddie scrambled for a moment, mind going blank in his panic, “Where?”
“To the boat house,” She headed to the back door, “Grab the walkie, quick before they get here.”
Eddie snatched the walkie off the counter and slipped his jacket back on as he followed Chrissy out the door. They stayed as low to the ground as they could and ran across the hill and down to the boat house. Luckily, Jason had parked on the opposite side of the house, allowing the pair enough time and cover to move without being seen.
Chrissy’s heart pounded as she slid to the ground in the cold shed. She could hear the water under the elevated boat, the way it lapped gently at the wood and metal beneath her, she tried to let the sound calm her enough to think. Looking out the window, Eddie frantically tried to reach Dustin.
“Hey, Dustin. ‘You there?” Eddie seethed into the walkie, “It’s Eddie, you remember us, right? ”
Nothing. Eddie crouched down below the window, his back against the wall as he waited for a reply.
“Hey, uh, if anyone's there, I really think we might be in a bit of trouble here, okay?” Eddie waited another moment, then through gritted teeth, “Harrington? Anybody?”
He smacked his hand against the silent walkie and jumped up, pacing around and cursing under his breath. Chrissy sat in silence, zoned out on a knot in the wood floor, simultaneously having too many and not enough thoughts. She cursed herself, the boat house was too obvious. She should have made them run into the woods or fight or anything. But now they were cornered, stuck in a cold wet shed where Jason was probably going to kill Eddie and there was nothing she could do.
*
Thanks to Robin's lack of concern for destruction of property, Dustin’s spare flashlight, and Nancy’s brilliant idea to split up, Steve had to listen to the aforementioned little shit spout Shakespeare, Sherlock Holmes, whatever. He rolled his eyes and let the kid wander away when he spotted something under a grate in the bathroom. Pulling it up revealed a collection of different shapes and sizes of jars, that upon closer inspection, held little habitats for long-dead spiders.
Out of the corner of his eye, Steve made out something on his arm. Swiping at it madly, he shattered the jar on the ground and stumbled into Nancy. Frantically trying to rid himself of any other spiders, Steve continued wiping at his clothes and told Nancy as much when she asked what was wrong.
“Don’t go in there,” he told her, shutting the door firmly. There were probably more of them in there, and he didn’t want one of the kids getting bit.
“Oh, oh,” Nancy winced, reaching out to touch Steve's hair even as he moved away, running a hand over his head. “Wait, stop moving?”
“What? Is there something-” Steve ducked away from her hand again and leaned forward to shake out all of his hair, clearing any spiders that might have been trying to hold on. “Got it?” he asked, doing a quick spin.
“If there’s a spider nesting in there,” Robin warned, “you’re never gonna find it till it lays eggs and all the babies spill out.” With that horrifying thought, she giggled and kept walking.
“Robin, what's wrong with you? Seriously,” Steve bitched.
“She’s got problems,” Nancy said like she knew any of Robin's problems. Steve let it slide and told her,
“It’s cool that you two are like friends now.”
“I don’t know,” Nancy thought, flicking her flashlight around the room, looking for anything of note, “She seems to like Chrissy a whole lot more.”
“Uh, well, yeah I guess we should…” Steve struggled to get out of the conversation, and get away from Nancy, “Get back to the investigation?” Nancy nodded, smiling up at him, but didn’t move. “The obvious things are not what… people… observe,” Steve tried to remember the quote Dustin had just told him, but he knew that wasn’t right. Either way, it distracted Nancy enough for him to make a quick getaway.
*
It felt like hours had passed of them waiting for either a reply back from Dustin or Jason to break down the door, in reality, it had probably only been 15 minutes. Chrissy hadn’t moved an inch, but Eddie didn’t pressure her. He knew there wasn’t anything she could do that he wasn’t already.
“Dustin? Please.” Eddie begged, voice cracking, “Are you there?”
Chrissy stood up, pushing past Eddie and heading for the boat.
“What are you doing?” He asked, stressfully watching out the window.
“No one is going to help us,” Chrissy examined the cranks and straps holding the boat just above the water, “Help me get this thing in the water.”
Eddie didn’t hesitate to step in, moving to the opposite side of Chrissy and helping her. It wasn’t long before the boat was freely floating in the water, bumping gently against the padded sides of the port. They pushed it to the end, not letting it leave the cover of the boat house, but far enough away that there was no chance the motor would catch on anything. Eddie extended a hand, carefully helping Chrissy into the boat before he clumsily joined her.
“Okay, we just need to get to the farthest side of the lake, that should give us enough time to run,” Chrissy knew the instructions were obvious, but she needed to say them out loud for her own sake. Eddie didn’t comment, instead, he just nodded firmly, reaching for the motor, “Once it’s on, they're going to know we’re here. We have to get this thing to go as fast as possible.”
Chrissy prayed it was fast enough.
Eddie kneeled next to the motor, taking a deep breath before he yanked on the starter rope.
Nothing.
He yanked again. And then again. Cursing as the motor failed to make even the smallest of sounds. It was dead. Their luck had run out. Chrissy stared at the back of Eddie, only the side of his face visible to her. She could see him grimace as he pulled and pulled again, begging for something to save them. Anything.
The only sound was of the back door of Rick’s house slamming closed and Jason’s voice. Eddie began frantically ripping at the motor cord, he was going to hurt himself.
Chrissy stood in the boat, putting a hand on his arm to stop him. She held out her hand, asking for help as she stepped out of the boat.
Eddie shook his head at her in confusion, but obeyed, eyebrows furrowed, terror flickering behind his eyes.
Chrissy pulled an oar off the wall. There was only one, but it was better than nothing. She handed it to Eddie. He took it easily, and then held out his hand to her, waving for her to grab hold of him once again.
Chrissy stepped back, glancing over her shoulder.
“Chrissy,” He warned, sensing her intentions, “Chrissy, get in the boat.”
“He’s going to kill you, Eddie.” Saying the words out loud broke her heart. The boy she loved once was going to kill the boy she loved now.
“Chrissy, please .” He begged, reaching for her.
“He’s going to kill you.” She said again, “He’s going to kill you, but he won’t hurt me.”
“Fuck, Chrissy, get in the goddamn boat.” He demanded through gritted teeth. She could see the tears welling in his eyes.
“Row as far as you can,” She took a step back, “I’m going to buy you time.”
He shook his head at her, “No, I’m not leaving you.”
“Eddie, please .” She begged softly, “I’ll meet you on the other side of the lake. But you have to go now. ”
If this were a movie, she would have kissed him. But this wasn’t a movie, and he was out of time.
Chrissy kicked the boat away from her, mouthing ‘go’ at him one more time before turning. There was a beat of sickening silence, and then the splash of water as Eddie did as he was told.
Chrissy’s mind roared as she approached the door. She felt like she was standing in a hurricane. Then silence fell around her as she stepped out the door. The eye of the storm was worse.
*
After Robin quickly moved past Steve and Nancy and the most awkward conversation ever- and that meant a lot coming from her- she caught up with Dustin. They snooped around the creepy bedrooms upstairs, gagging at the thick cobwebs and creepy old children's toys, untouched on the shelves.
She knew it was coming, but it surprised her anyway when Dustin asked,
“So why aren’t you and Steve dating?” Robin gawked, but he didn’t wait for her and instead kept talking, “Because I definitely like you more than Nance, I’m you guys are actually friends. Nancy is just Steve, like a cool status thing, get the best grades, break the big case, save the day, get the guy, and all that. But I don’t know why you won’t go out with him.” Now he wanted an answer, and Robin had a sneaking suspicion that she would be cornered in this little girl's frilly pink gothic nightmare until he had one.
“He- I- we- I just don’t want to go out with him? Sorry squirt, it’s that simple,” she shrugged and tried to squeeze past, but he blocked her in and Robin really didn’t want to fight one of Steve’s children.
“Not good enough!” he told her.
“Fine, look, Steve… he’s interested in someone else- Not Nancy!” she interrupted him before he could go back to trying to butter Steve up on a silver platter for that bitch, “just someone else, and so am I.”
“Who is it then?”
“No one you’d ever expect,” she laughed a little mean, and managed to push her way out the door while Dustin thought over what she could me.
“Who?” he demanded after her, “come on, you have to tell me.”
“I don’t have to do anything, Henderson,” she warned and stumbled down the stairs to where Max and Lucas were stuck standing still, watching the chandelier flash and flicker above their heads.
“It’s like the Christmas lights,” Nancy whispered, as everyone joined them.
“The Christmas lights?” Robin questions, her attention focused on the chandelier’s electric candles flickering above their head. Nancy explained how Will used them when he was stuck in the upside down, and Lucas put it together,
“Vecna’s here,” he breathed, “just on the other side.”
The lights dimmed, then, and shut back off, signaling Vecna was on the move. They didn’t know if he could hear or see them, or if he was actively hunting them, but they knew how they could track him. So they shut off the lights and began to wander through the house once again.
The sun had set in the time they’d been here, and after his encounter with the spider, Steve wasn’t especially happy about wandering around a known haunted house in the pitch dark. He wished Eddie was here, maybe if he had the motivation to look tough he wouldn’t be so scared.
Fortunately- or very unfortunately, Steve couldn’t really make up his mind- Robin caught Vecna in her flashlights only moments later. She lost him quickly, and Steve picked him up as he moved down the hall.
The rest of their group fell in behind him. They followed Steve and his flickering flashlight up the stairs and to a door they hadn’t opened yet but could see light coming through the cracks.
It led to an attic.
“What if it’s a trap?” Dustin asked, but they were climbing the stairs like moths after a flame, ignoring him calling, “Guys. Guys!” that finally dissolved into panicked mumblings.
The narrow stairwell opened up to a landing with peaked ceilings and a single light bulb on a simple wire hanging in the center. As they circled up, the light grew brighter and brighter, the energy also lit up all of their flashlights. They watched in awe, as Vecna reached across the barrier between worlds. The buzzing of the old wiring and their old family flashlights grew louder, bulbs burning hotter than they ever had before…brighter than they should.
Steve’s flashlight shattered first. Glass firing up at his face. Then one by one everyone else's went, until they were left once again in the dark, and the veiled between worlds felt that much thinner.
*
Jason froze, eyes wide as Chrissy stepped under the spotlight above the boathouse door. He stared at her, mouth open, as if he was seeing a ghost.
“Chris?” He asked, his voice low and weak.
“Jason,” Chrissy tried, her voice breaking, “Jason, you need to stop.”
“What?” He flinched like she had hit him, “Chris, baby, what are you talking about.”
Chrissy could only watch as he looked her over from where he stood, mouth suddenly dry. She swallowed hard, trying to speak again.
“You need to go home,” she hoped her voice wasn’t shaking as much as it was in her head, “Please, just leave him alone.”
“Chrissy, what are you saying?” Jason furrowed his eyebrows, almost sneering at her, “Are you with him?”
She knew he knew Eddie was here, “Please, he didn’t do anything.”
“He-” Jason shouted at first, then lowered his voice to continue, “He killed Anne, Chris!”
“No, Jason, he didn’t!” Chrissy begged, “There’s stuff happening that you have no idea about.”
“He fucking killed her, Chris.” Jason snapped, “What’s gotten into you?”
“You need to go,” Chrissy felt her composure break as she realized he wasn’t backing down. She hadn’t expected him to really give up, but she hoped he’d at least listen to her, let her buy Eddie more time.
Any angry or nasty words she had planned for him were gone now, all she could do was beg, “Please go home.”
“What did that freak do to you, Chris?” Jason suddenly stepped forward reaching for her, “He’s pulling you in, isn’t he? He’s fucking brainwashing you.”
Chrissy wanted to laugh at the irony.
“Please Jaso-”
“Where is he?” Jason snapped, glaring at Chrissy, face cold, “He’s not getting away with this. Where is he?!”
Chrissy opened her mouth to respond, but before she could Andy's voice rang out from the porch of Rick’s house.
“Hey, Freak!” He shouted across the lawn, jumping over the railing and running down to the water, “Where do you think you're going?!”
Chrissy felt sick as Jason turned and ran around the house to where Andy and Patrick were standing. She sprinted after him, looking over her shoulder as she tried to stay between him and Eddie.
“Jason, no!” She tried to shove him back, “Fucking stop!”
“Andy,” Jason started, eyes trained on Eddie out on the water, “take Chrissy to the car.”
Before Chrissy could move, Andy was on her. Large hands wrapped around her arms tight. She struggled to break free as Jason bullied Patrick into stripping off his suit jacket and headed into the water to swim after Eddie.
“Eddie go!” She screamed across the lake, continuing to thrash against Andy. She heard him call after her and cursed, “Fucking go, Eddie! Get out of he-”
Andy slammed a hand down on Chrissy’s mouth, holding it there as he tried to muscle her up the hill towards the car. Chrissy flailed, dropping her weight, twisting her shoulders, trying anything to get him to let go. Something told her if he got her to the car, her life would be over.
Doing the only thing she could think of, Chrissy yanked her head back and bit down on Andy’s hand, Hard. She could taste his blood filling her mouth and feel the crunch of flesh and bone as he wailed, dropping her with an instinctual shove. Chrissy fell on the ground, pain shooting through her wrist as she landed. She was up in a second, adrenaline pushing her forward.
She sprinted forward, heading for the tree line. If she made it that far she might be able to lose him with some cover. Andy was right on her heels. She was halfway there when Andy swiped out at her. His fist came down hard on her shoulder and knocked her to the ground once again.
Chrissy turned over onto her back, arm numb as she scrambled backward away from him.
“I’ll kill you,” Andy spat, holding his bitten hand to his chest, “You freak fucking bitch.”
The sound of splashing and Jason screaming made him pause. Chrissy followed his line of sight, horrified at the thought of Jason catching up to Eddie.
The relief she felt washed her in guilt, because Jason catching up to Eddie wasn’t the source of the noise. Instead, Eddie was missing from the boat and Patrick was hovering 10 feet above the surface of the water. She watched in horror as Patrick’s leg snapped up at a disgusting angle. It was too late for him, she knew that, but not too late for her. She took advantage of Andy’s shock as he watched his friend’s bones snap, scrambling up and sprinting into the woods.
She could barely feel her own body as she ran. The trees whipped her in the face and caught on her sleeves, but it didn’t matter. She struggled to pull the headphones around her neck up to her ears, holding them tight with one hand and pressing play on the Walkman with the other.
Steve wasn’t happy with the way Munson was treating one of his kids. So unhappy in fact, that he forces himself into their club leader’s van to see what he’s getting up to with Chrissy Cunningham, and maybe it’s a good thing he’s so paranoid because it might just save her life.
Or, the one where Chrissy doesn’t die in the Munson trailer, and, despite the world-ending, the king(former) and queen(current) of Hawkins High cannot take their eyes off Eddie Munson
Read on AO3 (content warnings in notes on A03)
Steve flailed on the ground, punching and kicking at the bats feeding on him. Every time he managed to kick one off, it just rushed right back in, its razor-sharp beak and teeth tearing into his flesh. The tail of one was still wrapped around his neck and he was unable to defend his torso and neck at the same time. He was beginning to run out of air, the tail crushing his windpipe only getting tighter as he thrashed.
His vision was beginning to blur when a loud smack sent one of the bats spiraling away from Steve, flapping its wings as it took off. His friends had shown up and were currently trying their hardest to protect Steve. Chrissy smacked the other bat with an oar, sending it away like Nancy had done, while Robin rushed around to the bat that was choking Steve.
She slammed her boot down hard on its tail, keeping it from tugging at Steve’s throat while Nancy slammed the end of the oar into it over and over again.
“Kill it! Kill it!” Eddie shouted, wielding the heavy flashlight Steve had lost earlier.
A bat swooped down attempting to take Eddie to the ground. Before it could make contact, Chrissy swung her oar, connecting with a crack and sending the bat dead to the ground. Robin twisted her boot into the tail of the bat, using her other foot to stomp on it as hard as she could.
“Nancy, watch out!” Eddie shouted, spotting a bat coming down directly for Nancy.
Before she could react it attached itself to her back.
“Nancy!” Robin shouted, grabbing the tail of the creature and yanking on it, she punched at its wings, trying to get it to go away.
“Robin! Get it off!” She screamed struggling against the creature.
“I got it!” Chrissy shouted, spearing her oar through its side and prying it off of her back.
Robin slammed the bat against the ground and Nancy shoved her oar through its head, finally killing it. Another bat swooped at Eddie, he smacked at it with the heavy flashlight, trying to keep it away as it snapped at him. Chrissy knocked it away with another hit, strong enough to break its bones and send it careening to the earth, lifeless. The hit also managed to break her oar in half, leaving her with only a jagged stick.
*
Thanks to Nancy and Robin, the tail around Steve’s neck was finally loose enough for him to get his hand under it. Steve didn’t have time to think before he pulled it away from his neck enough to sink his teeth into the bat in revenge for the chunks his friends had taken out of him. Knowing that it had been overpowered the creepy fucker tried to escape, but Steve kept hold of it as he struggled to get on one knee. He stood, swinging the bat by the tail, repeatedly slamming it into the dry lake bed.
Eddie, weaponless and unsure how to help, could only watch as Steve viscously destroyed the bat. His eyes flicked between him, repeating the motion a few more times, and Chrissy impaled a bat in the face with the broken handle of the oar and slammed it into the ground with a scream.
“Jesus H. Christ!” he screamed, searching the sky for more bats, but that appeared to be it for now.
They all looked on as Steve tore the final bat in two with his bare feet and hands, its blood still dripping from his mouth. Eddie was going to write odes to the picture before him-the half-clothed fighter panting as he rode out the aftermath of the fight. His hair was a mess, and all of him was smeared in blood and grime that only served to better contour his muscles even as they relaxed. He spat off to the side, then looked down to assess his wounds. Beside him, Chrissy rose, stake covered in bat guts, looking just as rugged.
Her white sweater was definitely past saving, Eddie thought remorsefully, as he looked over her for injuries, but found none.
“You okay?” Chrissy asked Steve, turning him away from an approaching Nancy with a hand on his shoulder.
“Well they took about a pound of flesh,” Steve tried to joke, “but other than that, yeah, okay.” She looked over the road rash tracked down his back, from the bat dragging him by the throat, and the blood seeping out of his stomach skeptically.
Eddie took them in, standing together. Logically they made more sense together- two of the same kind of people, brought up in the same circles, barreling down the same path of high school sweethearts turned unhappy married couple. They were even pretty in the same way.
“Do you guys think these bats had, like, rabies?” Robin asked, hunched over the one Steve had shredded. “It’s just rabies is my number one greatest fear, and I think we should get you to a doctor soon because once symptoms set in-”
“Robin,” Chrissy cut her off, not unkindly, but whatever she was going to say died in her mouth as the shadows of more bats appeared against the flashing sky, their strange cries filling up around them. “We need to move,” she said instead, and no one bothered to argue with her, just followed as she sprinted for the tree line.
*
At the Wheeler’s house Lucas, Dustin, and Max were all squished awkwardly into a loveseat, swarmed by disapproving looks. Lucas’s family, Dustin’s mom, and the Wheeler parents were all crammed into the small room with Chief Powell sitting in a chair at the center, directly across from the three kids as he began interrogating them.
“What exactly were you all doing at the lake?” Powell asked, leaning forward in his chair, waiting for an answer.
On the loveseat, they look to each other for answers. They hadn’t had the opportunity to come up with a plan. They floundered for words, Lucas and Dustin offering nothing while Max took the lead.
“We were, uh,” She looked to Lucas, who was no help, “We were just going for a walk.”
“To the lake,” Dustin squeaked, shrugging his shoulders, “we were gonna… take a little swim. Little night swim.”
Max and Lucas just nodded along with Dustin’s unconvincing lie. His mother somehow believed it.
“Dusty,” She cried, “Someone was just murdered there!”
“Yeah, we, uh, we didn’t realize that until we got there.” Dustin’s voice evened out as he became more confident in the lie.
“That’s why we didn’t swim!” Lucas added.
“And Nancy?” Karen asked after her own kid, “Was she with you at this… night swim?”
“No”
“Yes, uh…” Dustin and Max contradict each other.
Dustin raised his eyebrows thinking for a moment before lamely offering, “We’re not sure.
“She was there,” Dustin said, thinking as he spoke, “Then she left… it’s all a little confusing.”
“And that’s when you guys came!” Lucas added.
“Right! And they dared me to say what I said,” Max nodded, Dustin and Lucas fake laughing and agreeing with each other, “About the killer.”
“You're lucky you didn’t get shot.” Ted Wheeler condescended, making them stop laughing awkwardly.
“Have you had any contact with Eddie?” Powell asked, trying to refocus.
“That psycho… freak killer?” Dustin said, clearly not believing his own words, “God, no. Nope. Absolutely not.”
“We haven't heard from him in ages,”
“We barely know the guy!”
“Who?”
“Oh, that’s a bunch of bull!” Erica jumped in, cutting off the three freshmen.
“Erica!” Her parents shouted at her.
“I mean, you realize they're lying.” She continued, Lucas and the others shaking their heads, she ignored the pleading looks, “The whole couch is on fire!”
“Erica!” Her parents jumped in again, trying to keep her from embarrassing them.
“It’s just the facts!”
“Are you lying to these policemen, Dusty?” Dustin’s mom asked, disappointed.
“No!” Dustin squeaked out.
“Lying to the cops is a crime, Son.” Lucas’s father warned.
“I’m not lying!” Lucas lied.
“The fire is consuming us!” Erica shouted at her brother.
“Threaten them with a little jail time,” Ted Wheeler shifted in his seat, staring the kids down, “Maybe that’ll loosen their lips.”
“Oh, so you want to send our kids to jail?” Lucas’s mom asked, narrowing her eyes at Ted.
“We need to take this seriously!” He replied while Karen tried to defend him,
“He didn’t mean it like that!”
The group descended into chaos. Chief Powell watched as the people around him all began arguing with each other. He knew this was a bad idea.
“Shut up,” He tried, and when no one heard him he rose from his chair, screaming “Shut Up!”
The group was silent, reacting to the Chief like they hadn’t just been behaving like children.
“We’re gonna try a more civilized approach,” Powell looked around at the group, explaining what he had wanted to do in the first place, “One at a time. You first.”
“Wait, what?” Max asked when Powell pointed to her, “Why me?”
“Follow me,” he demanded, turning and walking out of the room.
“I’m not even in the Hellfire Club.” Max scoffed, irritated.
“Do I need to cuff you?” Callahan asked, hand on hip. Max rolled her eyes, “Up! Chop-chop!”
Max complained as she stood up and stomped after Powell into the other room, leaving her friends behind.
*
Still drenched from the plunge through Lover’s Lake, the group huddled, shivering, in the shadow of Skull Rock. The swarm of bats continued to circle over the treetops, but when it appeared they were moving on, Robin slowly crept out. Nancy and Chrissy were close behind, watching her back.
“That was close,” Robin said, letting go of the breath they’d all be holding.
“Too close,” Eddie agreed with a pained chuckle. Steve stood up to follow but cursed as he lost his balance and stumbled into Eddie.
“Steve?” Nancy called, worry clear in her voice, but he told her he was fine.
“No, you’re not dude,” Eddie said, “you’re losing a lot of blood.” He was holding most of Steve’s weight with one arm around his waist, trying to keep from touching the open wounds on his stomach. With his other hand braced against the rock, Eddie slowly lowered them both to the ground, so Steve could rest against it as Eddie assessed the situation.
He’d dressed injuries before- wrapped cuts on his hands, taped Wayne's broken finger once, and iced plenty of bruises, but this was a whole ‘nother beast. Steve reached to press against the bites, but Eddie caught him by the wrist,
“Hey! Woah! Those are dirty enough already,” Eddie warned, wishing that had something to clean him off with. Nancy and Robin circled in closer, trying to reach their friend, but it was suddenly feeling suffocating.
“Can you…” Eddie looked to Chrissy for help, “Can we get some space?”
She gently pulled Robin away, nodding at Eddie supportively, but Nancy lingered nearby. Steve breathed through his teeth, hissing in pain as he settled further against the rock, trying to get comfortable.
“Let me-” Nancy reached for Steve, but he flinched away from her. He darted a handout, clenching the shoulder of Eddie's jacket to balance himself.
“Wheeler, back off,” Eddie told her.
“Just let me, I’m his-” she cut herself off.
“His what, Nancy?” Eddie bit, unable to think or help Steve while she was in the way. “Just back up,” he ordered.
Shocked by his harsh tone, Nancy relented.
Finally able to think, Eddie shrugged his jacket off his shoulder and let it fall to the ground behind him. Then he pulled his shirt over his head and did his best to tear it into strips between his teeth. Seeing what was to come, Steve shifted back off the wall onto his knees, with his hands locked behind his head.
Eddie would have loved to say he was entirely focused on stopping the blood flowing steadily from Steve, but it would have been a lie. Sue him, he loved a battle-worn hero and paired with the image of Steve stretched out before him awaiting Eddie’s attention, his imagination was running wild.
“Just do it,” Steve said, having waited long enough.
“Okay,” Eddie said with a deep breath, readying himself. He leaned further into Steve’s space, wrapping his arms around him to get the makeshift bandage in place, before pulling it taught back across his front. Eddie's hair fell forward, brushing at Steve’s shoulder and chest as he worked.
Steve let out a groan of pain right into Eddie’s ear, and he had to bite down to ignore it.
“Sorry,” he mumbled instead of making a joke he knew he would regret.
“It’s okay,” Steve whispered back into the little space between their faces. Clenching his jaw, Steve looked up, inadvertently flexing his arms as he tried to stop from yelling out. Eddie couldn't help but trace the smooth lines of his neck and biceps only inches away from his face as he secured his handy work with a knot.
“Too tight?” He asked, leaning back, hands raised as if Steve were a spooked animal.
“No, it’s good,” Steve assured even as pain washed over his face. He let out another groan, as Eddie sighed in relief.
Done, Steve tried to even out his breathing. His eyes were wide and hazy, as he tried to ignore the pain, but they latched on to Eddie’s. He nodded, encouragingly, and mimicked slow breaths for Steve to follow.
“Thanks.”
“Yeah.”
He was lingering. Eddie knew it, but he didn’t want to leave Steve until he was ready. Eventually, it was too much, Eddie couldn’t stop the need to move any longer.
Steve ached when Eddie finally looked away, wishing he wouldn’t leave quite yet. But without a reason to stay, he collected his jacket where he’d thrown it earlier. When he stood, Steve was eye level with what looked like pieces of a broken sword trailing down the side. He blinked rapidly as if to clear the image, but it was still there. Steve could only pull his eyes away from the tattoo to look up at the rest of Eddie's exposed chest where more work was suddenly on display. Before he could get a good look at the spider, or make out the thing below it, Eddie was helping Steve with a hand under his arm.
Once Steve was up, Robin swooped in rambling once again about rabies, even as she glanced between Steve and Eddie, who was fleeing up a rock to put space between them.
“I kinda feel like punching you right now,” Steve deadpanned, her hand slipping into his.
“Sense of humor still intact,” she laughed scared, “that’s a good sign.”
“Eddie,” Chrissy warned, worried he’d slip.
At the top, he turned to look down on them all and asked, “So this place is like Hawkins but with monsters and nasty shit?” Another look from Chrissy, and Eddie, smiled indulgent before beginning to make his way down the rock.
“Watch for the vines!” Nancy warned, coming back from the shadow she had been sulking in while Eddie patched up Steve. “It’s all a hive mind.”
“A what?” he asked, frozen with his arms held out for balance.
“All the creepy crawlies around here,” Steve explained, “they’re like, one, or something. You step on a vine, you’re stepping on a bat, you’re stepping on Vecna.
“Shit,” Eddie said decidedly.
He continued to creep down the rock, now careful to avoid touching any of the vines he had hardly noticed on his way up. Now he could see that they were all moving minutely, crawling towards something. Once he was close enough, Chrissy held up her hand and helped him to jump back down. He hadn’t been listening to the conversation, but apparently she had.
“ You have guns in your bedroom ?” Chrissy asked, unbelieving.
“A Russian Makarov and a revolver,” Nancy snapped back, not one for having her abilities questioned.
“You almost got me with that one,” Steve reminded her bitterly.
“And you almost deserved it,” She smiled back, earning him a confused, almost disdainful look from Steve. Chrissy rolled her eyes and spun Eddie so she could pull his vest off his shoulders, and throw it at Steve’s face.
“It’s cold,” she said by way of explanation, “To Wheelers then?”
Chrissy watched as Nancy bitterly took up the lead towards her house. She raised an eyebrow at Robin, silently asking her what Nancy’s deal was. Robin replied with a shrug as they continued to walk shoulder to shoulder.
They hadn’t been moving long when the ground began to shake beneath them, throwing the whole group off balance and tumbling to the ground.
Chrissy flailed backwards, ass-hitting the ground hard when she landed. Robin came down onto her lap with a yelp. Instinctually Chrissy cradled Robin’s head, muscle memory saving Robin from hitting the ground too hard. Robin clung to Chrissy’s sweater, hiding her face in Chrissy’s shoulder, both of them holding on tight as they waited for the earthquake to stop.
“Goddamn,” Chrissy cursed, bracing herself against the ground.
“Okay, second on my list of least favorite things,” Robin said into Chrissy’s shoulder, “Earthquakes.”
“You okay?” Chrissy panted as the ground became still again, looking over Robin for any serious injuries.
“Yeah,” Robin said shakily, “Good catch.”
They waited on the ground for a moment, trying to catch their breath. Chrissy looked over her shoulder, worried about where the guys had ended up. Eddie was flattened out under Steve, all of their hands curling around his torn-up stomach trying to mitigate any further damage. Eddie groaned and let his head fall back against the ground as Steve pulled himself up shakily, looking over to the girls.
Robin peeled herself away from Chrissy, standing and then offering a hand to help Chrissy up. Chrissy dusted her pants off as she jogged over to where Nancy was still on the ground.
“Are you okay?” Chrissy extended a hand to Nancy, who eyed it cautiously before accepting the help up.
“I’m okay,” Nancy nodded, brushing the debrief off her sweater, “You?”
“Yeah,” Chrissy nodded, glancing back at the other three who were slowly approaching, “Yeah, we’re okay.”
Chrissy and Nancy waited a moment for the others to catch up. Eddie headed for Chrissy, placing a hand on her arm.
“You okay?” He asked, closer to her than he needed to be.
“Yeah,” Chrissy nodded, looking over him as well, eyes catching on his bare skin beneath his jacket, “Are you?”
“Right as rain,” He assured, hand dropping down to hers for a moment and squeezing. Neither of them noticed the knowing smirk Robin cast at the ground.
“Good. Everyone is fine,” Nancy interjected, “Now lets go before it happens again.
Nancy darted ahead of the group as they continued walking. Chrissy tried to keep her hand in his, hoping the contact would stave off her anxiety. When she realized that it was throwing both his and her balance off as they tried to avoid stepping on the vines, though, she let go. She threw a glance behind her shoulder, checking in on him as he settled into place walking behind her. He smiled back, he was still there. Not going anywhere.
It was only a few more minutes when Robin apparently became irritated in the silence.
“You’ve got a good arm on you,” Robin said to Chrissy awkwardly, “Is that from cheerleading or…”
“Huh, oh, thanks,” Chrissy laughed softly, smiling at Robin and making her relax, “No actually, that’s leftover from softball.”
“Haven’t you been a cheerleader since, like, middle school?” Robin asked, confused.
“Yeah, but I did softball in elementary, and after cheer was over in the spring in middle school,” Chrissy explained, aware that Eddie and Steve had backed off a few yards to have their own conversation, “I got too busy for it once high school started, but I guess the muscle memory never really went away.”
Robin nodded and then Chrissy continued, “You know we were on the same team for a bit, you don’t remember that?”
“What? Really?” Robin asked, somewhat embarrassed that she had forgotten.
“Yeah, dude, for like a whole season in middle school,” Chrissy laughed, bumping her shoulder against Robin’s, “I think it was 6th… no, 7th grade.”
“Oh. My. God!” Robin gasped, suddenly remembering the awful months of forced sports participation, “I had that totally removed from my memory.”
“Yeah, I don’t blame you.” Chrissy scoffed, “It was the worst season ever. It rained, like, every game and I remember practices being so hot.”
“Oh, god!” Robin wrinkled her nose at the memory of sweaty outdoor practices and her socks being drenched in the dugout, “And Carol Perkins was on the team, too, right?”
“Ugh, Carol fucking Perkins,” Chrissy spat, thinking of her ex-peer, “She was clinically evil. Do you remember when she tripped that girl Candace during the first practice and she broke her arm?”
“Yes! I think she moved after that,” Robin said, “Like, I really can’t remember ever seeing her again after that.”
The two girls giggled thinking about the horrible fucked up season.
“God, that was awful, I don’t blame you for not coming back,” Chrissy wiped at the tears caused by her laughter. “The only thing that kept me there that last year was the insane crush I had on the assistant coach.”
Robin laughed and then froze for a moment. She remembered the assistant coach being a girl. Maybe Chrissy misspoke? But, no, the other coach was also a girl. They had never had a male softball coach.
Chrissy tried to hide the ways she flinched, suddenly worried she had misinterpreted some key information about Robin. Maybe she had been staring at Tammy Thompson all those years because she liked her hair.
“That’s so true!” Robin said, a little awkwardly, but the gentle acknowledgment was there, “Honestly, I probably would have too if I hadn’t felt like I was melting into the ground every day.”
Chrissy relaxed, letting her shoulder drop as she laughed with Robin.
“Speaking of crushes,” Robin said, drawing out her vowels and side-eyeing Chrissy, “What’s up with you and Munson?”
“Oh really?” Robin raised an eyebrow, and then latched onto Chrissy’s hand dramatically pulling her in and pretending to gush, “Oh, Chrissy! Are you okay! Please, get as close to me as you physically can! Kill me if you want!”
“Robin stop! ” Chrissy hissed, laughing at her exaggeration of Eddie, “You’re insane! That is not what he sounds like.”
“It’s not far off!” Robin insisted, Chrissy glanced behind them, luckily Eddie was too busy encroaching on Steve’s space to notice Robin’s theatrics, “Plus, he doesn’t have to say anything. Literally, everyone can see the way he looks at you.”
“Okay, whatever,” Chrissy rolled her eyes, glancing off into the woods.
“Hey, I think it’s cute!” Robin defended, “Y’all have that whole, Romeo and Juliet thing going on, very romantic.”
When Chrissy didn’t say anything Robin continued in a softer tone, “Seriously, though, nobody can question that he cares about you a lot. And you clearly feel the same.” Robin teased just a little bit with that last line, and then added, “Personally, I’m rooting for you, it’s like watching a soap opera or something.”
“I’m glad we entertain you,” Chrissy shook her head with a laugh, an easy silence falling over them as Robin left her with her thoughts.
Chrissy hated that Robin was right. She knew they were probably gross to watch, unknowingly gushing over each other's well-being the past few days. Chrissy couldn’t help it, though, Eddie was the first person in what felt like years that actually saw through her Queen Bee persona. She remembered the spark she felt when he had invited her to see his show down at the Hideout. She had done her best to quell the feelings she had, telling herself that she cared about him in a friendly way, but the truth was she probably would have thrown herself in the lake after Eddie had he not resurfaced last night.
Chrissy looked behind her again, looking for Eddie. She found him face to face with Steve, looking up at him only inches from each other. She turned back around quickly, the sudden feeling of intrusion making her blush. She furrowed her eyebrows at the ground, realizing suddenly that she had been so busy staring down Eddie, she might have failed to notice the other jock he seemed to be interested in.
*
“Eddie, hey man,” Steve called as they started walking, and nodded for Eddie to join him in the back of the group away from the girls. “Listen, I just wanted to say thanks for saving my ass back there, and uh, patching me up.”
He didn’t know how to thank him for the vest. Chrissy had given it to him, but the fact that it was Eddie’s was why he was enjoying wearing it a bit too much.
“Shit, you saved your own ass, man,” Eddie scoffed, “I mean that was a real Ozzy move you pulled back there.” Steve looked at him blankly. He must be talking about the kids' nerd shit again.
“Ozzy?” Eddie prodded, to no avail. “When you took a bite out of that bat,” he smiled at the memory, “Ozzy Osborne? Black Sabbath?” Steve could feel Eddie watching him and was carefully avoiding his gaze, so he couldn’t tell that Steve had no idea who he was talking about.
“He bit a bat's head off on stage,” Eddie explained as if it was the coolest thing anyone had ever done.
“I don’t…” Steve finally admitted brows furrowed.
“You know what, it doesn’t matter,” Eddie waved off, “It’s very metal, what you did. That’s all I’m saying.”
“Metal?” Steve repeated, looking away to hide his blush. He was pretty sure that was a good thing in Eddie’s mind, comparing Steve to his music and what sounded like a performer he liked. “Thanks.” Steve wondered if the album on the back of the vest was Ozzy, or if Eddie would show him Black Sabbath sometime when the world wasn’t ending.
“Henderson told me you were a badass,” Eddie told him, “Insisted on the matter, in fact.”
“Henderson, said that?” Steve questioned, surprised. He knew logically that Dustin cared about him, but the kid always seemed to be arguing with Steve or making fun of him.
“Oh, yeah,” Eddie confirmed, confused on how Steve could ever doubt that. “Shit, that kid worships you dude. Like you have no idea. It’s kinda annoying, to be honest.” Eddie laughed lightly and shook his head, sending his hair rippling around his face and hiding his smile.
“I don’t even know why I care what that little shrimp thinks, but uh, guess I got a little jealous, Steve,” Eddie said, teasingly intoning his name. “I guess I couldn’t accept the fact that Steve Harrington was actually… a good dude.”
Steve cringed at the full name, but he understood; he hadn’t been a good guy for very long. He wouldn’t go so far as to describe the change graduation and Robin had wrought on him as “flying in the face of the universe,” but Eddie was one to exaggerate.
“… and my own personal Munson doctrine,” Eddie finished his rant with hands held over his heart, eyes fluttering- looking the image of flirtation, but Steve managed not to react.
Eddie dropped the act, before bringing it back even stronger.
“Still super jealous as hell, by the way,” He admitted, leaning in close to Steve's face, grinning up at him madly. Steve couldn’t help but glance at him, heart picking up at how close their faces were together before elbowing him away. “Which is why I would have never jumped in to save you in any… normal circumstances,” Eddie explained, looking around at the madness they had been thrust into. “Nope, outside of DnD I’m no hero. I see danger and I just turn heel and run.”
“Give yourself a break man,” Steve cut into his self-deprecating talk with a hand on his chest, all too aware the only thing separating them was the layer of leather. They stopped walking for a minute to face each other, once again too close for Steve to process.
“The only reason I came in here was because those ladies came in straight after you. Wheeler and Buckley didn’t hesitate for a moment, and I have no idea what inspires that kind of loyalty…” They both looked ahead to where Robin and Chrissy were talking happily, and Nancy led them further into hell. “But I know it looks as close to an unambiguous sign of true love as these cynical eyes have seen.”
“I think you’re thinking of yourself,” Steve laughed and started walking again. Leaving a caught-off-guard Eddie in the dust, only for him to gracelessly jog to catch up again.
“You jumped in after Chrissy didn’t you?” Steve guessed. “That’s what made you come in here. That’s your sign of true love.”
Eddie blinked owlishly at him, so Steve continued,
“Besides, whatever Nancy and I had… it’s long gone.”
“It doesn’t seem like she knows that,” Eddie muttered conspiratorially, ducking his head and looking up at Steve through his bangs.
“Yeah,” Steve sighed, watching her marching through the trees sadly, before looking back at Eddie, “but I’ve definitely moved on.”
He knew there was no hiding the desperation in his eye. For so long, he’d searched for somewhere to put all the love that built up in him. It’s why he and Robin were so attached, why he took care of the kids as best he could, and yet there was more affection and emotion than he felt he could ever give away. Now he was faced with Eddie and his big doe eyes searching for an answer he would never give, and Steve knew that he’d have to carry it all around at least a bit longer.
His melancholy was quickly cut off, however, by the earth beginning to shake again, threatening to knock them off their feet. Steve fell back against a tree, as Eddie stumbled into him saying through gritted teeth,
“Here we go again.”
*
Once inside the Wheeler’s, Nancy rushed them up to her bedroom, eager to be on the move again. Steve, however, hung back. In the kitchen, he could hear a quiet voice, as if distorted. Splitting off, he searched the first floor of the house, hoping if something was there to kill them Nancy would find her guns quickly.
The rest of the group disappeared upstairs and stayed there long enough for him to confirm that there was no other living thing in the house with them, and yet he could still hear something. It mocked him.
He circled back to the kitchen and tried staying still so there was no other sound as he listened. When the noise came again, he recognized it.
“Dustin?” He asked aloud, confused. There was no way for the kid to be upside down, and even searching more intently now, Steve couldn't find a walkie-talkie hiding anywhere in the kitchen.
“Dustin! Dustin!” he yelled, spinning in place as he watched for any sign of the kid. “Dustin! Hel- Hello?” Part of him expected Henderson to burst through the wallpaper like the Demogorgon had done at the Byers' house, but as the rest of the group returned Steve was still shouting at nothing.
“Maybe he does have Rabies?” Robin said, staring wide-eyed at her friend.
“Steve, what are you doing?” Chrissy asked, loud enough for Steve to hear and turn to them.
“Henderson,” he explained excitedly, “that little shit he’s like in the walls or something.” If anyone could get them out of this pickle, it was Dustin. “Just listen,” he told them, before going back to yelling for the shithead to show himself.
The group of four stood stock still, trying to tune into whatever it was that Steve was hearing. It only took a moment for each of them to finally hear the voice
“Why is there a gate at Lover’s Lake,” It was Dustin’s voice. Disembodied, distorted, and echoey, but they could all hear that it was him.
“Dustin!” Eddie called out joining Steve, the rest of them doing the same only seconds after.
They darted around the Upside Down version of the Wheeler house, calling out for Dustin and searching behind curtains and chairs.
“Alright, either this kid can’t hear us or he’s being a total douchebag,” Steve said, stopping his search.
“Will found a way.” Nancy said, almost to herself.
“What?” Steve asked, turning to look at her.
“Will. He found a way,” She began to explain, “He found a way to speak to Joyce…through the lights!”
“Who’s Joyce?” Eddie asked at the same time as Chrissy asked,
“Who’s Will?”
Nancy didn’t respond, instead, she rushed towards a lamp near the wall, trying to flick it on. When the button clicking didn’t light it up, Steve told her to try the light switch on the wall.
Nancy aggressively flipped it up and down, wishing for something to happen.
“Uh, guys?” Steve asked, getting everyone’s attention, “You seeing this?”
They followed the beam of his flashlight up to the light fixture on the ceiling. In the light, red particles glittered in the air.
Robin, Chrissy, and Eddie watched as Nancy approached the fixture. She reached up, hesitantly brushing her hand through the particles. Instead of the particles floating away like disturbed dust, the red specks glowed brighter where her hand was, swirling around her fingers. The gentle buzz of energy could be heard as well.
In awe, the rest of them approached the light. Brushing their hands through the particles, in awe at the feeling. It was like submerging their hands in warm TV static.
“Does anyone know morse code?” Nancy asked, pulling her hand down and looking around.
A chorus of disappointed no’s came from the group. Nancy frowned, wondering if her dad or brother would have had anything that had Morse code on it.
“Wait, does SOS count?” Eddie asked, looking down at the girls next to him, they dropped their hands, looking up at him blinking, “Is that… is that good?”
“Cool, cool,” Eddie said, looking up at the lights and thinking for a moment before he began pulsing his hand in the light, making them glow in pattern.
Before they knew it they were all kneeling on one side of Nancy’s bed, waiting for the kids on the other side to plug in the Lite-Brite.
“Okay, are you guys seeing this?!” Dustin’s disembodied voice shouted.
Nancy reached out to where she thought the Lite-Brite might be. Particles swirled and glowed around her hand.
The sound of Dustin laughing in excitement on the other side rang out around them.
“Okay, okay,” Dustin said, “I'm not moving it, but we're going to unplug it, okay? Stand by! Okay, try it now.”
They all shifted nervously. If this didn’t work, they had no idea what to do. Chrissy grabbed Eddie’s arm, holding on to him tight as she watched. Nancy hesitated, thinking for a moment before reaching out and tracing letters in the space.
H I
“Hi!” Dustin’s voice rang out, “Okay okay -- um -- that worked!”
“Yes!” Steve shouted, reaching around Nancy and grabbing an excited Eddie by the other shoulder.
“Hi!” Eddie shouted back at the glowing particles. Chrissy and Robin were giggling in relief. It was working. This was working.
Nancy reached out again to trace more letters, thinking of the quickest way to explain their situation.
S T U C K
“Stuck!” The kids on the other end said,
“Yes, we are,” Robin said, collapsing her hands below her chin.
“Okay, they’re stuck in the Upside Down.” Lucas figured.
“You can’t get back through Watergate?” Dustin asked.
“Watergate?” Stave said, “ What the hell is Watergate?”
“Oh,” Robin realized, “because the Gate’s -- in water..”
Chrissy snorted, shaking her head. She hadn’t known Dustin very long, but the joke made sense for him.”
“Hm, cute,” Eddie said, looking down at Chrissy and shrugging.
“Okay, well, no,” Nancy said, reaching out to spell again.
G U A R D E D
“Guarded.” The voices repeated back, pausing to think, “Watergate is guarded.”
“Perfect! Yes, yes, yes.” Steve exclaimed, glad they figured it out. Eddie clapped dramatically at the lights.
“Okay, okay, um, well, we have a theory that maybe could help with that,” Dustin called back.
“Yes, genius child,” Robin sighed, rubbing her face with her hand.
“We think Watergate isn't the only gate, that there's a gate at every murder site.”
The five of them sat there for a moment, looking between each other in confusion.
“Does anyone understand what he's talking about?” Nancy asked
“No idea,” Eddie shook his head.
Grimacing, Nancy reached out and drew a question mark into the particles.
“Okay. Seriously,” Dustin whined, “how many times do I have to be right on the money before you guys just trust me?!”
“Jesus Christ, this kid’s gotta get his ego in check,” Steve commented, rolling his eyes at his childfriend who couldn't see him.
“It’s his tone, right?” Eddie said, leaning forward to confer with Steve about their shared child.
“I know!”
“Okay, so…” Nancy turned to Eddie, “How far is your trailer?”
“Seven miles, give or take,” Eddie told her.
“Nancy,” Robin started, “I get your house in here is like, weirdly, frozen in time and shit, but, haven’t you always had bikes?”
“Yeah,” Nancy nodded, “I can’t remember how many we had at the time, but there are at least some.”
“Okay, cool.” Robin said, then gesturing to Steve Eddie, and Chrissy, “Why don’t you three go check it out, and we’ll tell them on the other side to meet us at the gate by the trailer?”
They agreed easily and left Nancy’s room, following Steve through the Wheeler house to the garage. The Wheeler’s station wagon was sitting in the garage, but given that no other electricity in the Upside Down seemed to work, they didn’t bother.
They found four bikes leaning in a pile in the back of the garage and began pulling them apart and setting them against the wall. Steve did a quick inspection, not wanting a broken bike chain to be the thing that killed one of them.
“Here,” He rolled one of the bikes over to Eddie as Robin and Nancy came into the garage, “There are only four, but you and Chris can take this one.”
“Thanks, man,” Eddie nodded, taking the bike from him.
Robin, Nancy, and Steve picked up the other bikes. The five of them carefully rolled the bikes out the side door of the garage, making sure not to disturb any of the vines on the ground.
“If we can just get to Kerley, it’ll be a straight shot south.” Eddie pointed in the direction of his home as he sat down on the bike.
“Should be easy,” Steve said, getting on his own bike, “Just everyone be careful not to run over anything weird.”
Eddie slid forward on the seat and with a wink and an exaggerated voice said, “Get on, babe.”
Chrissy scoffed and smiled, rolling her eyes as she swung her leg over the back of the bike. Sitting as close to him as she could, she wrapped her arms around his middle, holding on tight as he took off.
To her it felt like no time before they were there at the trailer. She knew it had been not so easy for the others, especially Eddie- who had been doing twice the work. The group skidded to a stop. The others threw their bikes down, but Eddie just planted his feet and laid his head backwards on Chrissy’s shoulder as he panted.
“Are you okay?” She asked, feeling guilty.
“I’m great!” He gave her an exhausted smile, “I coulda done at least seven more miles.”
Chrissy stood up from the bike, allowing Eddie to hop off and drop it to the ground.
“That’s gotta be a Guinness World Record,” Robin said, panting, “most miles traveled inter-dimensionally.”
“Just inhaled a bunch of that crap,” Steve coughed aggressively, spitting on the ground, “It’s stuck in my throat.”
In this world, the gate was out in the open, a glowing red crack in the ground. They approached it slowly, the gate writhed and creaked.
“That must be, like, right where Anne died,” Robin said, frowning at the ground.
In front of him, Steve could see Eddie wordlessly take Chrissy’s hand, squeezing it as Chrissy wiped at her face.
Steve sighed, of course Chrissy knew Anne- she was her boyfriend's sister. He had seen them hang out around town probably more than he saw Jason and Chrissy out. He’d be sure to say something to her when they were through and out of immediate danger.
“I think there’s something in there…” Chrissy said nervously, leaning back away from it.
A dark shadow began pressing against the membrane, lifting it up at a point. Suddenly it burst open, sending them all rushing back screaming. A long stick violently banged against the sides of the gate, wetly ripping the membrane to shreds as they looked on in disgusted horror.
When the movement stopped, Steve slowly crept forward, “No way,” He breathed looking down into the gate.
On the other side were Dustin, Max, Lucas, and Erica. They were standing opposite Steve, like a reflection in a puddle.
“Hi there!” Dustin waved, beaming down, - up?- at Steve.
“Hi,” Steve and the others replied, amazed at what they were seeing.
“Holy shit this is trippy,” Robin said, wide-eyed.
“Bada-bada-boom!” Dustin shouted, making Steve roll his eyes at the cocky expression.
They all stood there for a moment, both sides looking down at each other.
“Alright, I guess I’ll be the guinea pig,” Robin shrugged and approached the gate. As she got closer, she kneeled down, unsure of exactly how to go though in a way that made sense. Taking a deep breath, Robin decided to crawl on the ground, shoving her torso through first. When she was halfway through, she reached her arms up, letting Max and Lucas pull her the rest of the way until she was lying on the ground in the real world.
“Oh my god,” She laughed, climbing to her feet, “That was so weird.”
“You’re next,” Eddie told Chrissy, walking with her to the edge, he helped her kneel down on the ground before she repeated Robin’s actions. She giggled on the other side, agreeing with Robin as she helped her up.
Steve watched Eddie disappear through the gate next, then leaned over it grinning back at them,
“Come on in the waters great!”
Nancy rolled her eyes and waved for him to get out of the way, before sitting on the ground beside the opening and awkwardly rolling through, ending up in the same position on the other side. Steve stepped up to bat, letting his feet dangle through first then pulling the rest of him through. It felt like hanging off the edge of a pool upside down. As he sat up he could feel the strange rush of gravity switching direction as vividly as water rushing around him, but the feeling didn’t stop. Instead of ending up on the other side where he expected to see all his friends waiting, Steve was falling through empty air.
There was nothing around him, just darkness rushing past him until he landed hard on his back in an eerily familiar setting.
The vines, wiggling underneath him made it obvious that he was still in the Upside Down, and he recognized the smooth curved walls of his pool, even if he’d never seen it drained like this. Over the lip of the pool, he could see his house in the distance, the lights on, but what insisted on his attention was the rotted face of Barb peeking between the tendrils, more like limbs than plants, that encased her.
“Do you remember what you did, Steve?” A booming voice asked him, “Or have you already forgotten?”
Of course, he hadn’t forgotten. As much as he tried to forget, to separate the good memories of that night from the horror and guilt of the next morning Steve had never been able to. He still saw Barb, scared and lost in the woods, every time he looked out his bedroom window. He hated himself for not checking on her, for not even peeking out the curtains before he and Nancy fell asleep.
It sunk in now that she had never even had a chance to leave. If her body was here, trapped in the evil version of his pool, she must have been pulled in, same as how he was dragged into the depths of Lover’s Lake. Before Steve could process that revelation, blood began to rush out of the drains along the side of the pool.
“When I kill someone, I never forget,” the voice taunted, but Steve wasn’t listening any more. Blood had started pooling, thick and warm, around his bare feet, sending him scrambling for the ladder, pulling himself along with the vines.
Stepping off the final rung and onto solid ground, he made to run for his house where he could see the silhouettes of his parents in the kitchen window, but his backyard was gone. Instead, he was standing at the top of an old staircase, looking out over a sea of red decorated by debris floating freely through the air as if suspended in Jello.
A clock chimed warningly, reminding him of Max.
“I see you’ve been looking for me, Steve,” Vecna, he decided it must be Venca, said as if chiding a small child. “You were so close.” Looking around, taking in the shattered but still recognizable pieces of the Creel house, Steve began to cautiously make his way down the stairs. At the base, where the entry hall should have been, was a circle of peaked spires.
“How did you find Victor’s home? Was it as lovely as you expected?” Vecna continued to taunt. “I’ve been meaning to check back in, but I’ve been busy.”
Closer now to the twisting structure of vines, Steve could make out the mutilated face of a young girl who must have been Anne Carver.
“So very busy.”
He spun around, trying to find the source of the voice or escape the sick scene before him he didn’t know, but his eyes landed on the stained glass Robin had shattered only yesterday, before descending into Vecna’s memories.
Steve watched agape as it dawned on him, how this all connected. The buzz of the tattoo machine shut off as the man turned to Steve and greeted him. Finally feeling himself again, released by the wash of Henry’s memories, he sprinted down the hall. Knowing logically that he wouldn’t be able to escape Henry in the memory of Hawkins's lab, didn’t stop him from trying to escape.
He rounded the corner on a boarded-up door, and tore at the crummy-looking wood. Splitters scraped at his hands, but it barely registered over the dire need to get away.
“Steve,” Vecna called, his footsteps echoing and wet on the smooth tile, but Steve was focused on the task at hand. He managed to pull one board free, then another.
“Now that you’ve seen where I’ve been, I’d like very much to show you where I am going.”
The final board broke free and Steve pushed through the large swinging door, only to find himself back in the room with Brenner before it was eclipsed in darkness. An unseen force pushed him backwards, making him sit as he could feel vines trapping his arms and legs. One wrapped around his neck, threatening to cut off his air for the second time that day. No amount of struggling did anything, as Vecna appeared before him creeping closer and closer with an outstretched hand. His fingers were more like claws, and as he flexed them in front of Steve’s face, he watched the world end.
Steve wasn't happy with the way Munson was treating one of his kids. So unhappy in fact, that he forces himself into their club leader's van to see what he's getting up to with Chrissy Cunningham, and maybe it's a good thing he's so paranoid because it might just save her life.
Or, the one where Chrissy doesn't die in the Munson trailer, and, despite the world-ending, the king(former) and queen(current) of Hawkins High cannot take their eyes off Eddie Munson
Read on A03
Eddie never in a million years thought he’d step foot into Steve “The Hair” Harrington’s house. Yet here he was, leaning against the counter in the house half of Hawkins' High had partied in not that long ago, feeling wildly out of place. He stared down at the glass of water in his hand, swirling it around in the cup. After they arrived, Steve and Robin had played host to the odd pair. Steve insisted his house had enough rooms for both Eddie and Chrissy to have their own, but Chrissy seemed anxious enough at the idea of being secluded that Robin had quickly jumped in, offering the couches in Steve’s living room as an alternative. Robin then whisked Chrissy away to get her into clothes that weren’t her cheer uniform, leaving Eddie and Steve standing awkwardly in the kitchen. In any other situation, Eddie would have just left. But this wasn’t a normal situation.
When Steve went upstairs to get bedding for the living room, Eddie finally relaxed for a moment, alone for the first time in hours. Part of him wasn’t convinced that this wasn’t some hyper-realistic drug-induced dream, or maybe a very elaborate prank being pulled on him by people he barely knew. But weirdly enough the logical part of his brain knew this wasn’t a fantasy. This was real life. He had felt it in the way Chrissy shuttered thinking about what she went through.
Eddie was pulled out of his thoughts when he heard Robin and Chrissy come back downstairs. They didn’t notice him standing in the kitchen. He watched for a moment. He had never seen Robin be outwardly kind at school.
“Hey, if you need anything I’m right upstairs, okay?” Robin said, placing a hand on Chrissy’s arm.
“Thank you,” Chrissy responded, fidgeting with her own hands, “for being so nice about this, I really appreciate it.”
“Anytime,” Robin shrugged, almost laughing, “Weird shit is kind of our specialty. You're literally probably in the best hands with me and Steve.”
“That’s reassuring,” Chrissy actually laughed this time, not with the same carelessness as she had earlier when they met up in the woods, but she seemed to be a little less tense.
“I’m glad you think so,” Robin smiled, “I’m gonna head up to get ready for bed, if you or Eddie need anything, really, just yell.”
“Thank you,” Chrissy glanced towards the back yard, “I think I’m gonna go sit outside for a minute actually, try to get some air, you think that’s okay?”
“Oh yeah, of course.” Robin walked towards the sliding back door, hitting a switch that Eddie could just barely see turn on the pool lights.
“Thanks,” Chrissy slid open the door stepping outside as Robin turned to leave.
“Goodnight Chrissy, see you in the morning,” Robin said, more like a promise than a good night.
Eddie watched Chrissy and Robin leave the living room in different directions. He dumped out the water in his glass, leaving it upside down in the sink. He walked out into the middle of the living room, as Chrissy walked towards the pool and then took a seat on the edge of a deck chair.
Steve returned, arms piled with pillows, sheets, and blankets that he threw onto one of the couches with a huff. Then, noticing Eddie’s attention was elsewhere he followed his eyes to where Chrissy was sitting out next to the pool. Seeing her there made him flinch, but she wasn’t too near the water and at least the outside lights were on.
“Don’t… leave her out there, yeah?” he asked Eddie, still watching Chrissy, reminding himself she was alright.
“Sure, man,” Eddie scoffed, and started rifling through the bedding that Steve brought down, only to be interrupted but Steve’s handing him one side of a sheet. Unspeaking, they stretched it out over one of the couches, then Eddie copied Steve’s movements as he tucked it around the cushions.
“I’m sorry,” he said genuinely, if tired. “I’m not trying to boss you around, I just- the world is ending again, and I really, really don’t want to see anyone die.”
“Nothing is going to get her in your backyard,” Eddie tried to brush off his concern.
“That’s where Barbra Holland died,” he replied quickly, knowing there was no kind way to say it. “Sitting by my pool. Where I left her, so yeah, something could get her in my backyard.” Steve could hear Robin calling him bitchy, but he felt it was warranted.
“Fuck man,” Eddie breathed, trying not to let out a nervous laugh. “That's heavy. Sorry.”
“It’s okay,” Steve shook it off, doing up the second smaller couch on his own. “You didn’t know… but now- I mean, yeah, I was still being a bit of a jerk, but now you get why I’m a bit of a freak about this- the kids being safe.”
“Yeah,” Eddie laughed, “I guess I do.” Their eyes met, and they shared a weak smile in the brevity of the moment amongst the weight of the night. They fell into a brief silence, neither sure of what to do.
“Here,” Steve thrust something into Eddie's hands, “thought you might not want to sleep in chainy jeans.”
“Chainy?” Eddie giggled under his breath but accepted the neatly folded sweatpants. Steve hardly seemed to notice.
“And just ask if you need anything else, you know… I really am sorry, I’m trying not to be a jerk.”
“Nah,” Eddie shrugged, “Just used to herding your sheep.” Steve opened his mouth to say something back but was cut off by Robin hollering down the stairs.
“Steven! We’ve got a big day tomorrow and it is past my bedtime!”
They both laughed at her, hands clasped over their mouths to stifle the sound.
“Guess I should probably go,” Steve said with a final glance outside towards Chrissy.
“Don’t worry, I got her,” Eddie told him with a pat on the shoulder that landed a bit more awkwardly than they both would have liked. “Go get your girl.” Steve cringed at the implication of Robin being his girl, but let it slide,
“Good night, man.”
“Good night.”
Eddie slid open the back door, hoping it made enough noise not to startle her. A surge of panic passed through him when Chrissy didn’t react to the sound, worried she was having another episode.
“Chrissy?” he called, taking a few nervous steps down the stairs.
“Yeah?” she turned over her shoulder, looking up at him in the doorway.
“Hey, fuck ,” Eddie breathed out, relaxing his shoulders, “Sorry I thought we were losing you again.”
“Oh,” Chrissy scoffed, “Yeah, I’m still here, I think.”
“Good,” Eddie fidgeted, suddenly feeling nervous for non-supernatural reasons, “Mind if I join you?”
“Please do,” Chrissy said, “It’s kinda creepy out here alone.”
Eddie took a seat on the edge of the chair next to Chrissy, watching her face as she stared into the pool. The pool lights cast her face in a soft blue glow, the reflections creating gentle movements.
“How’re ya feeling?” Eddie asked, worried about upsetting her, but wanting to check in.
“I’m okay,” Chrissy chewed on her bottom lip, trying to think of the right thigh to say, “I feel better not being alone, but… yeah.”
She trailed off, glancing up at Eddie and then looking away towards the woods. Feeling that there was more she wanted to say, Eddie egged her on.
“Hey, we’ve only really known each other, like, a day,” Eddie offered, “but you can talk to me if you need…want to. About anything.”
“That’s sweet,” She spared a small smile his way, “It’s just that, I can’t tell what's real.”
“What do you mean?” Eddie asked. He thought he understood what she was saying; with all this weird shit going on he too was having a hard time knowing what was actually true, but he also felt like there was something more to what she was saying.
“I mean, when I was…having an episode? It started like everything was normal, I was still in your van, we were driving to your place.” Chrissy explained, “It was… so normal. And then it wasn’t and I’m just so scared that at any second everything that feels normal now is going to turn out to be that again.”
Eddie could tell how scared she was, He wished he could make it stop. No one deserved to be that frightened, especially not her.
“Hey,” He said softly, reaching a hand across the space between them, and waiting. Luckily Chrissy reached back, placing her hand in his. “I know it might be hard to trust this and I wish there was a better way for me to prove it, but I promise you this is real.”
“Thank you, Eddie,” Chrissy held on tight to his hand, she could feel the cool metal of his rings against her skin, “Really, you shouldn’t have to deal with all of this, with me.”
“Are you kidding me?” Eddie asked, not letting go of her, “I get to say that I saved Miss Chrissy Cunningham from a demon or an alien or something? Really I should be thanking you for providing me with the coolest backstory known to man...”
For a moment, Eddie was worried she wouldn’t find him funny, but she laughed, “I’m grateful to have been saved by you.”
Eddie held onto her hand for a moment, he could feel the tension fall away from her, to a degree, and was grateful she was beginning to relax again.
“Hey,” Eddie said, suddenly remembering the original intentions of them meeting up after the game, “I know you were hoping for something stronger, but would you settle for some nicotine in place of the ketamine?”
“Oh, uh, I’ve never smoked before. Not even a cigarette.” Chrissy admitted, taking her hand back and fidgeting.
“Really? You really were skipping over all the gateway drugs, huh.” Eddie laughed, fishing in his pocket and pulling out a crumpled pack of cigarettes and his lighter.
Chrissy watched as Eddie placed a cigarette between his lips, the lighter glowing against his face as he pulled the flame in. She couldn’t help but notice the way his dark lashes almost touched his cheek while he looked down at the cigarette in his mouth. Boys always had better eyelashes. He caught her, his eyes flickering over to hers as she watched him. He smiled around the cigarette between his teeth and took a puff before holding it out for her. She stared at the burning cherry, hesitant.
“You don’t have to take it if you don’t want to,” Eddie said, still holding it out to her.
Chrissy thought for a moment. Earlier today she had been prepared to do ketamine; in comparison a few hits of a cigarette was child's play. She took it from him, bringing it up to her lips and looking at him for approval.
“It’ll be hot and you might cough,” Eddie warned, “But just go slow and you’ll be fine. I promise.”
Chrissy nodded, feeling the pressure of doing this right grow. It had been a long time since she had actually cared about looking dumb in front of a boy. She kicked herself for thinking like that; she had a boyfriend, she shouldn’t be worried about looking good in front of anyone else.
She raised the cigarette to her lips, looking over at him one more time before taking a drag. She watched as the cherry flared a deep orange when she breathed in. It tasted better than she expected, rich and earthy, but it was also hotter than she was prepared for. It instantly stung the back of her throat, making her cough.
“Woah, easy,” Eddie said, putting a hand on her back as she coughed into her hand, holding the cigarette out away from her, “Just breath,” She took a deep breath, trying to clear the feeling. “Hey, that wasn’t that bad! I almost threw up the first time I had a cigarette.”
“Ew,” Chrissy laughed, letting out little teary eyed coughs, “That’s awful.”
“Yeah, I mean, I had the excuse of being 14,” Eddie shrugged laughing and taking the cigarette back from her and taking a drag, “I definitely got better at it.”
“14? That’s so young,”
“Yeah, that was what? 5 years ago?” Eddie mused, taking another drag, “Feels like forever ago. Probably shouldn’t have been left unsupervised back then.”
“You're still alive, right?” Chrissy offered, “things could have ended up worse.”
“Well, aren't you a glass half full kind of gal.” Eddie punctuated his words by tapping her on the knee, and then, “Here Little Miss Sunshine, want to try again.”
“Sure,” She took the cigarette back, feeling a little more confident. She held the cigarette and took a short but heavy drag, letting the smoke enter her lungs and doing the best to keep her composure.
“There ya go, good girl!” Eddie congratulated, his words taking Chrissy off guard. She hid her shock with a cough, smoke spilling past her lips and out her nose, “Feel better yet?”
“Mhm,” Chrissy nodded, watching as he got up and moved to the edge of the pool, hopping around like had earlier today at school, “Thank you, for caring enough to make me feel better, I mean.”
“Anytime sunshine,” Eddie watched Chrissy react to the pet name, turned around to hide the smirk on his face as he stalked around the pool, “Anytime.”
“Of all the Hawkins kids I could have ended up in this situation with,” Chrissy took another short drag, “I’m actually really glad it’s you.”
Eddie paused, taken off guard by the weird but genuinely very sweet compliment, “I feel the same way.”
He reached the end of the pool, looking down at the deck end of the diving board and then back up at Chrissy with a raised eyebrow.
“Eddie don’t .” She warned, unable to keep a wide smile from spreading across her face.
He slowly lifted a foot, tilting his head at her as he took a teasing step up onto the board.
“Eddie,” Chrissy gasped, “What if you fall?!”
“Me? Fall?” He asked with exaggerated cockiness, taking confident steps down the board, the end beginning to dip as he got closer,“No way, I’m practically a cat.”
On queue, Eddie began to lose his balance, flailing his arms and rushing back towards stability. Chrissy gasped, standing up and throwing a hand over her mouth, nearly dropping the cigarette.
Back on the cement deck of the pool Eddie stared at Chrissy for a moment, cheeks red. Chrissy couldn’t help the giggle that spilled past her lips, then the full on laughing just moments later. Eddie joined her, laughing heavy as he walked back over to her.
“Yeah, very cat-like,” Chrissy said as their laughter died down, both now standing next to each other next to the glowing pool. The urge to jump in and take Eddie with her was gnawing at her shoulders. Another night, she told herself.
“Hey, cat’s aren't perfect.” Eddie shrugged, looking down at her, unable to take his eyes away from the soft lines of her face. A pretty hand, the one not holding the cigarette, came up to her mouth as she yawned, “Ready for bed?”
“Definitely,” She said at the end of the yawn, and then lifted her other hand, holding the quarter of the cigarette that was left up towards Eddie, “Want the rest?”
“Oh, sure,” He hesitated and then instead of taking the cigarette from her, leaned down to where she was holding it up to him. Looking at her, he placed the end of it in his mouth, her thin fingers nearly touching his lips as he took a long drag. He pulled back, gently taking the cigarette with him before blowing the smoke out of his nose. He pretended not to notice the way she paused and looked at him. He took the cigarette out of his mouth and pushed into the ashtray on the table.
“Uh, it’s…it’s late, we should get some sleep,” Chrissy said, trying to sound casual.
Eddie nodded, turning towards the house. He resisted the urge to grab Chrissy’s hand as they walked inside.
**
From Steve’s bedroom window, he and Robin can see the two newest members of their highly exclusive club sitting beside the pool. This is not how he intended for any of this to have gone.
Honestly he didn’t know what he thought would come of throwing himself into the back of Eddie’s van, interrupting what was apparently a drug deal. Which, maybe that’s what he expected given Eddie's reputation, but it didn’t really matter. All he could think about now was the way Chrissy had clung to him, the fear in her eyes as she fell out of her nightmare, but also the waver in her voice as she’d talked to Steve. He knew she hadn’t wanted him there, but she'd been paranoid enough and he’d scared her further. He had shoved his way into her and Eddie’s space where she, evidently, felt comfortable. Down next to the pool they sat together on a lounge chair, calmly, then Eddie searched for something in his jacket.
“Talk to me, dingus,” Robin called, spread out like a starfish on Steve’s bed. Her eyes were closed but he didn’t doubt she was giving her full attention. Steve let out a sigh and fell onto his bed beside her, feet dangling off the side.
“It’s happening again,” he said it, even as he couldn’t believe it, “and this time instead of gaining a Robin, I’ve got The Freak, who hates my guts at the moment, and Hawkins High royalty, who- oh thats right- also hates my guts!” He let out a self-deprecating laugh. “I did that thing again, where I don’t ask and just help when I’m not wanted,” he admitted.
“Well it worked in your favor this time,” Robin scoffed, “or at least in Chrissy’s.” Steve shook his head,
“I don’t think I did anything to save her.”
“Well you at least knew what was going on,” she reasoned. “Plus, they don’t hate your guts, well Eddie might, but not your guts. He hates your reputation’s guts. Sure, you’re overly protective and pushy, but you make up for it in other ways.”
“Like how?” He asked, disbelieving.
“Well, you’re a total push over, for one.”
“Wow, thanks,” he said flatly.
“No really,” she insisted, “and sometimes you cook.”
“So you’re saying my best qualities are my willingness to drive you and brats around and cook you meals?” He rolled over to look at Robin, face resting in his elbow, and she mirrored him to answer,
“Sorry, I don’t feel like getting all sappy right now but yes, those are some of the things I like about you,” she rolled her eyes but watched as his attention drifted back to the open window and the pool lights shining up at them. “Why do you care so much what they think of you?”
“I don’t really, it’s mostly… I think they like each other,” He frowned, unsure of why the thought bothered him so much, “I mean it makes sense, Chrissy is… perfect, and Eddie’s got that whole,” he waggled his fingers in Robin's face, “edgy guy in a band thing going on. They’ve got opposites attracting going for them, so maybe I’m just jealous that they make sense, and they're like… falling for each other as we watch.” They both sat up, Robin pulling a pillow to her chest and clutching it as they looked out the window together. As if trying to prove Steve’s point, Eddie placed a comforting hand on her back and let it rest there as they continued to take turns pulling drags from the same cigarette.
“How was your date with… what’s her name, Lin-”
“Brenda,” Steve sighed, “It was fine I guess. Honestly, I cared more about the game, plus she’s not looking for anything serious, mostly interested in seeing what Steve Harrington has gotten up to since graduating.”
“So you’re jealous because last time it was you saving Nancy, but now-”
“It’s not about Nancy,” he insisted, a little too harshly. Nancy was still a sore spot, and he could only deny having feelings for her so much. “It’s about… how easy it looks, but here I am going on date after date with nothing to show for it, and after one failed drug deal, Eddie Munson, of all people, has a girl laughing like her life wasn’t flashing before her eyes an hour ago.”
“If only we could… combine,” Robin said, still watching out the window.
“Combine?” Steve repeated, finally pulling his gaze away, and turning back to Robin.
“Yeah, I’ve found the girl of my dreams, but can’t find the courage to ask her out, while you go on a million dates just looking for anyone!” She threw up her arms in frustration.
“Not anyone,” Steve grumbled.
“No not anyone,” Robin corrected, “but someone worth your time.”
They trailed off into comfortable quiet, and when Robin’s eyes began to drift Steve ushered her into the bathroom to get ready for bed.
After they’ve both brushed their teeth they settle under the covers back to back, as they tend to whenever they can convince Robin’s parents to let her stay over at her friend Melissa’s (Stevie seemed to obvious for how often he picked her up, or was forced to stay for dinner, but Melissa would have been his name had he been born a girl). It was usually easier to sleep with Robin close to him, but that night he tossed and turned unable to keep his eyes closed. His restless night typically started after he had woken from a nightmare, but it wasn’t visions of monstrous mouths, or fleshy mall destroying monsters that kept him up.
“Hey, Robin?” He whispered, “You awake?”
“Yeah,” she groaned.
“Isn’t Eddie… gay? I mean, that’s what people say right?” he asked, unsure of the words even as he said them.
“Steven,” she warned, sounding more awake, “you know better than to assume-”
“No, I know, I just- it would be cool for you to have a gay friend, right?” he said, almost too quickly for her to understand, “but he’s got a thing for Chrissy anyway, so never mind.” He pushed himself back against his pillow, pointedly, and pretended to be drifting off to sleep.
“Woah, that was a lot, but yeah maybe it would,” she shrugged, “as for the Chrissy thing, people can like both, but still you shouldn’t-”
“Assume,” he finished for her, his eyes now wide open but gazing distantly. “Or even guess, I know. I won’t.”
“Good,” Robin said into her pillow before leaving Steve alone in the world of the waking, as her words played over and over in his head.
People can like both.
*
The morning after the game, Max woke up gasping for air, holding back a scream as the image of Billy faded from her mind. The horrible images were quickly replaced with a pulsing headache that forced her from her room in search of Advil. She shoved them in her mouth, followed it with a handful of water, and hoped they might buy her another hour of sleep.
Those hopes were dashed when the sound of police sirens whooped outside of her house, growing closer. Human curiosity getting the best of her, Max made her way to the front door. Stepping out onto the porch, she watched as three police cruisers and an unmarked car speed their way down the gravel road of the trailer park, all skidding to a stop in front of Eddie Munson’s trailer. His uncle was sitting on the porch smoking a cigarette.
“Looks like that Munson boy’s up to no good again,” Her mother’s voice made Max jump, not expecting her to come out behind her.
Without saying anything Max stepped off the porch, walking across the gravel road and towards the scene in front of her. Cops were pulling yellow rolls of barrier tape from the trunks of their cruisers, officials already rushing about as Chief Powell spoke to Eddie’s Uncle.
Max continued creeping closer, watching as Powell and Officer Callahan walked towards the hitch end of the trailer. When she couldn’t get any closer, she craned her neck to see around the cars and people. What she saw made her sick.
It was what used to be a person, a girl from what she could tell. But she was… crumpled. Her limbs were lying at odd angles in the grass, broken in unnatural places as well as at the joints. She looked the way a dead spider did, dried and caved in on herself. With horror, Max realized it was Anne Carver. Max recognized the windbreaker she was wearing, she had seen her in it last night. Anne was only a sophomore, only a year older than Max, and Jason’s Carver’s little sister. Max had never seen her even breath in the direction of the trailer park, but last night while feeding her neighbor's neglected mutt Max saw her here. She was getting out of a car with a boy around their age Max had never seen before. He had been wearing what she had learned by proxy was the opposing team's colors. Anne was giggling with him, hanging off his arm as he smoked a cigarette before they went in.
Max tried to piece together some understanding of what had happened, there was no way that boy killed Anne. Anne was tall for her age, almost the same height as the boy she was with, and Max was sure she remembered him to be a twig of a boy, scrawnier than Wheeler. There was no way he had the physical strength to do this to her, not alone at least. And even then, a group would have a hard time committing something this awful without anyone noticing until the next morning. Max couldn’t help but connect the strangeness of the body with the way the lights had flickered violently through the park last night. She had tried to convince herself it was shitty infrastructure and nothing else, but she was having a hard time sticking to that sentiment now.
Before Max could take another step forward, an officer landed a heavy hand on her shoulder. Making her jump as he turned her around, demanding she go back inside. With another quick glance back, Max ran across the road to her mother. The idea of getting any more sleep this morning was lost from her mind.
*
Dustin was sitting next to his mother, taking in yet another death. It never seemed to end, the death that filled Hawkins. Though it was still tragic, he couldn’t help but be relieved that this time he hadn’t seen it and wouldn’t have to take on any more grief.
That’s what he was hoping for, at least. Then Max showed up at his doorstep after barely acknowledging him and the party at school for weeks. She hadn’t been looking herself recently. Her clothes had all somehow turned to drab, muted shades, and even when Dustin managed to talk to her, she usually kept her headphones on and ignored half of what he said.
Now she was here, heavily breathing from the bike ride over and looking frightened in a way that could only mean one thing.
Max confirmed as much with her story about the lights, and the body she shuddered to even think about. Given the confirmed murder and with the rest of the party MIA, Dustin knew he didn’t want to deal with this alone- he needed to get to Steve.
They couldn’t speak over the whirring of their tires or their labored breaths, but Max and Dustin kept careful watch over each other. As they both frantically pedaled across town, Dustin tried to stop from thinking of the demon dogs chasing them down in the junkyard, or the demogorgons following them through the school. At least the adrenalin made him pedal faster.
The sign for the arcade was in sight, and Dustin couldn’t help the childish thought that told him Steve and Robin would be taking over soon, that they would make it alright. He knew he was older now, had dealt with this plenty before but he was barely managing to keep his friend group together. With Max drifting from them in her grief, and Lucas now ditching out on Hellfire, it felt almost good that he could still rely on them in crisis.
Just as Family video came into view, Steve’s voice crackled through the Walkie in the side pocket of Dustin's back-pack,
“Henderson, we’ve got a code red.” The buzz cut off as Steve waited for a response. “Can you hear me? Code Red. we have a code red,” he continued to ramble through the radio as Dustin and Max both slammed on their brakes, swerving to stop themselves from crashing into each other.
“Steve!” Dustin yelled back into the walkie, waiting for a chance to interject between his friend's repetition of “Code red. We have a code red.” Eventually, he got through, “Steve! I know, I’ve got Max with me. We’re almost to Family Video. Over.” Max leaned in closer, awkwardly walking her bike next to Dustin’s so she could better hear Steve.
“Why would you- oh, Rob and I called off, you need to get to my house stat.”
“Okay,” Dustin accepted, mapping the route to Steve’s in his head. “You have a phone, right? We need to find Eddie. And don’t forget to say over. Over.”
“Eddies here?” Steve told him, confused as to how Dustin would know he was involved. “Wait, how did you know it was a code red?”
Dustin lets Steve’s abysmal Walkie-Talkie etiquette slide in the face of Eddie being found.
“You have him!? Is he okay? Over.”
“Why wouldn’t he be okay, Dustin?”
“Steve!” Dustin reprimanded, but Max had grown tired of his screeching and yanked the walkie out of his hand.
“Turn on the news dipshit,” she ordered, “we’ll be there soon.” Then after a pointed look from Dustin she added. “Over and out.”
The walkie clicked off again, and Steve knew it would be futile to try and get them back on the line or explain what the hell they were up to. He knocked his forehead against the walkie a few times before letting it clatter to the kitchen counter.
“Robin!” He called towards the living room, “Turn on the news.”
“What?” She called back.
“Deaf bitch,” Steve groaned to himself, walking out of the kitchen and towards the living room where the others were, “Turn on the news, local probably.”
Robin leaned forward from where she was on the couch, sitting with Chrissy between her and Eddie. Steve couldn't help but notice how close they were to each other, the sleeve on Eddie's right arm was pulled up past his elbow, rolled tight on his bicep. He was showing Chrissy his tattoos. Steve resisted the urge to roll his eyes. Robin grabbed the remote off the table, flicked the TV on, and flipped through the channels until she landed on the local news.
Steve sat on the arm of the couch next to Robin while the group took in the story on the news.
“What the fuck…” Eddie trailed off, voicing what both Chrissy and Steve were also feeling.
The reporter was standing almost directly outside of Eddie’s trailer, a crowd of people and police cruisers filling the background behind her.
“We’re at Forest Hills Trailer Park in east Roane County,” The reporter began, addressing the viewers, “We don’t have a lot of details now, but we can confirm that the body of a Hawkins High student was discovered early this morning.”
“What?” Chrissy said to herself, almost like she was worried she was a ghost watching her own murder on TV.
“Police have not released the name, though we are told they are currently in the process of notifying the family.”
Eddie looked down at Chrissy next to him, placing a hand on her knee and squeezing. Steve didn’t try to understand the pointed look he gave her.
“That was supposed to be me,” Chrissy said out of the blue, looking down at her hands in horror, “I was supposed to die there, not them.”
“No way,” Robin said, shaking her head in disbelief, “This has to be a coincidence, there’s just no way.”
“How could it be?” Tears started to well in Chrissy’s eyes, guilt heavy in her chest, “This is my fault!”
“Don’t feel bad about surviving, Chrissy,” Steve tried to reassure, “Whoever it was could have died even if you did too, we don’t know.”
“Steve’s right, Chrissy,” Eddie said, pulling her attention to him, “You can’t blame yourself for this.”
“And we’re gonna figure this out as soon as we can,” Steve added, “Don’t ever tell them I said this, but the two of the smartest brats I have ever known are on their way over to help, it’s gonna be okay.”
*
Lucas hated this. If he had known how bad everything would hurt this morning, he would have skipped more than half the drinks he had last night. He was sure that the cold bathroom tiles against his knees were the only thing keeping him alive at the moment. Another heave wracked his body as more alcohol made its way back up.
A knock on the door made him jump as he spit into the toilet.
“You alright in there, Sinclair?” It was Jason on the other side of the bathroom door.
“I’m good,” Lucas grimaced, giving a thumbs up no one else could see.
“First hangover feels like you're gonna split in two, but you’ll live,” Jason advised through the door, trying to catch his breath Lucas was sure he was lying.
Lucas waited another moment more, sitting back on his heels and waiting for himself to gag again. When the danger of nausea seemed to have subsided, he stood, kicking the lever on the toilet to flush it, and went to the sink. Lucas looked at himself in the mirror, he was sweaty and his face hung in a way that made him look older than he was. He bent over, careful to not move so fast that he sent himself back to praying in front of the toilet, and splashed cold water on his face, rubbing it around his eyes, trying to wash away the grime from last night. He snatched a few paper towels from the roll someone had thought to leave in there and dried his face and neck.
Making his way to the kitchen, Lucas grabbed a solo cup from the stack of unused ones to fill with cold water and slowly sipped on it at the sink.
From where Lucas stood at the unused serving window, he could see Jason, Andy, Patrick, and Chance all in front of the TV. The volume was just loud enough for Lucas to hear it from where he was.
“Hawkins’ student got murdered,” Patrick told Jason.
Lucas slowly made his way out of the kitchen and towards the TV to try and get a better view.
“As you can see behind me, Chief Powell and the Hawkins Police Department are actively investigating the scene,” The familiar news reporter turned and gestured to an even more familiar trailer behind her. Lucas almost dropped his water when he recognized Eddie's home behind her.
He had only been to Eddie’s place specifically a few times, but back before Max broke up with him he had spent almost all of his time at Forest Hills Trailer Park. He had spent long nights on the outdoor couch in the background of the news broadcast talking to Eddie, mostly about Max.
Lucas couldn’t help the thoughts racing through his mind. Was it Eddie? He could really only push his luck so far, one of these days his mouth was bound to get him in trouble. But, as awful as it sounded, Lucas didn’t think Eddie’s murder would end up on the news. Most of the town treated him as either a pest or as a dead man already.
What if it was Max? Lucas stopped himself there. He couldn’t think about that. He’d call her when he got home just to check. She was probably fine, though, he told himself. She was the toughest person he knew, she had to be fine.
The sound of sirens tuned Lucas back into the real world. Patrick was getting on Andy about some joke he made and Jason was walking up to the window, watching the approach of police cruisers. In a moment of panic, Lucas ran back into the bathroom, deadbolting the lock behind him to wait out whatever was happening.
Lucas felt like he had been hiding in the bathroom forever, but he was glad he did instead of running. Luckily when the door knob to the bathroom had rattled Jason was quick to lie about it being broken and locked up, saving Lucas’s cover. Lucas had stood with his ear to the door as soon as he heard Chief Powell asking Jason to sit.
Powell began asking Jason about the party last night, lukewarm threats of arrest for trespassing and underage drinking thrown around. This had to be about the murder, there’s no way it wasn’t. Patrick told him that in all the years that they had partied here, not once had the cops shown up.
“What about your girlfriend?” Powell asked, “Did you see her last night?”
“Chrissy?” Jason asked softly, no longer pushing back at their questions. “No.”
Lucas had to push closer against the door to hear as the conversation took on a somber tone.
“That’s odd with her being your girlfriend and all,” the other officer prodded.
“When was the last time you talked to her?” Powell asked calmly.
“After the game,” Jason answered shortly, even as the chief stared at him down, clearly wanting to hear more. “Look, this… this doesn’t have to do with that dead student, does it?” Lucas could hear the shake in Jason’s voice through the door. Powell ignored his question and continued to push,
“What did Chrissy say when you talked to her?”
“Well- she… she said she was going to go home, get changed, something like that.” Jason stuttered, getting agitated.
“Did she mention anything about buying drugs for the party?” Chief Powell’s tone remained flat, trying to seem unthreatening now, even as he made the accusation.
“Drugs?!” Jason blanched, “No. No way. Chrissy doesn’t mess with that crap.”
“Maybe someone talked her into it,” He suggested, “Maybe your sister was interested, asked her to tag along?”
“No, wait, Anne?” Jason looked between the two officers, fear building in his voice, but neither offered him any information. “What does Anne have to do with this?”
“Do you know of any connection your sister or girlfriend would have to Eddie Munson? Ever seen them talking to him?”
“That freak? No! No way,” Jason spat. At a loss the policemen looked at each other as if deciding to believe him or not. “What- what does Eddie have to do with all this? Did that freak hurt her?” He was desperate now, and shouting, demanding answers even as he dreaded what they could be. “Is my sister all right? Is- is Chrissy- Tell me what he did!”
Lucas could barely breathe. He leaned all his weight against the door to the bathroom, ear pressed close so he could hear the two police officers explain that Annes body had been found in the trailer park. She wasn’t supposed to be there, but there’d been a party and she’d found herself in Forest Hills. For a brief moment he wondered if Max had been there, but quickly assured himself that she wouldn’t have been interested. Still he hoped she was okay, it sounded like it might not be safe where she lived if there was someone killing people running around the trailer park.
Chrissy was missing, they explained to Jason, their words heavy with implications that she might also be dead. Eddie was also missing, but that meant something entirely different to them. They tried to ask Jason if there was anywhere she’d have run to, but he was quickly overwhelmed by an angry confusion and wasn’t even trying to answer their questions any more.
A drug dealer and two missing girls, one already dead? Lucas knew that didn’t look good for his friend.
Jason ran outside, the cops taking the opportunity to make a quick exit, and the rest of the boys could hear his cries of anguish. To Lucas, it sounded like rage, like the roars of monsters he’d seen tear grown men to shreds.
*
Max and Dustin threw their bikes recklessly on the lawn and sprinted up the steps, where Dustin proceeded to pound on the door. Needlessly waking the whole neighborhood, as Steve almost immediately opened the door, and waved them in.
“Eddie!” Dustin cried happily, despite expecting him to be there, “Thank god you’re alright.” The two briefly hugged, and Eddie ruffled his hair as they pulled apart.
“I’m perfectly fine, pipsqueak,” He teased with an easy smile. “And now I know all your secrets, and am beginning to understand why Steve Harrington feels like he’s your guy's mother.”
“He already told you?” Dustin gasped, “I wanted to get to tell you.”
“Yeah, well, you snooze you lose,” Steve shrugged, locking the door behind Max and sliding the deadbolt into place. “Plus, we need to fill you in on what’s happening now.”
Dustin finally managed to look past Eddie, where Robin was sitting on the couch with Chrissy fucking Cunningham.
“What the hell is she doing here?!” He exclaimed, gesturing toward the cheerleader as if she even managed to rank top ten weirdest things he’d ever seen.
“That’s rude,” Steve said under his breath slapping his hand down the same time that Max shoved past him to introduce herself.
“Ignore the loud mouth, he just doesn’t know how to cool it. I’m Max.” She plopped herself down next to Chrissy and looked to her for explanation. “So they filled you in? What’s happening?”
“Someone… died,” Chrissy started, her eyes darting around the room, never landing on anyone and instead looking off unfocused. “But I think it was supposed to be me. I- I- can’t.” She cut herself off with a choked-off sob and looked to Eddie as she leaned into Robin’s hand rubbing soothingly up and down her arm. “Could you…” Eddie jumped into action, with a literal little hop,
“Yeah, yeah of course,” He assured, doing his best to stop himself from replacing Robin on the couch, pulling Chrissy’s hands into his own. Instead he paced as he recounted the previous night, glancing over at Steve and Chrissy for confirmation whenever he lost the thread. As he finished, he managed to stand in one place, elbowing Steve in the side, “Then Steve here kidnapped us both and forced us to spend the night on his fancy ass couches.”
Max looked around their assembled group, ignoring the way Steve was practically glaring at Eddie, and trying not to antagonize the already upset Chrissy.
“If it’s back again we need to know,” She pushed, “Did you see anything? Dark particles maybe.”
“It would almost look like dust, swirling dust,” Dustin interjected from where he had slumped over in a large lazy boy during Eddie’s tale.
“No, no, man there was nothing you could see or…touch,” Eddie recounted with a haunted look in his eyes before they darted up to Chrissy as if to check she was still there.
“We tried to wake her,” he explained, nodding toward Steve, letting the motion take him further into his space, “but she couldn't move. It was like she was in a trance or something.” Noticing Eddie's distress, Steve’s hand came up to grab lightly at his elbow and rested there when it didn’t get shaken off.
“Or under a spell.” Dustin wondered aloud.
“A curse,” Eddie agreed, the seriousness of his voice growing even as they brought in their nerdy nature.
“Vecna's curse!” the kid confirmed, as if that made sense to anyone else around them.
“Who’s Venca?” Steve asked at the same time Chrissy spat, “I’m cursed?!”
“He’s an undead creature of great power,” Dustin plowed on, unbothered by their questions as he and Eddie pieced together their newest enemy.
“A spell caster,” the DM leaned in closer, a comfortable mindset falling over him as he put words to the indescribable, spoke fantasy into reality. “A dark wizard.”
“Yeah, that's great,” Chrissy cut them off, “Can we circle back to where I’m cursed.”
*
Wayne was trying to gather himself, maybe work his way through a pack of cigarettes, and not worry his head off about his missing boy. It was going alright, minus the not worrying part, until a girl, looking around Eddie's age came up and introduced herself. They were only feet away from the crime scene that had once been his front yard, so he didn’t feel that bad when he told her to take her little notepad and leave him alone.
“Look, let me level with you, Mr. Munson,” Nancy, she had said her name was, continued, taking a seat next to him on the picnic table. “The paper that I write for is... small. We don't have the staff to keep up with the big guys. And I'm just... looking for something, anything really, about what happened last night.”
“Why?” He scoffed, flicking the ashes off his smoke. “S’far as I can tell, you all have it figured out already. My nephew's a freak.” He spat the word, even though it was a kinder term than Eddie usually had thrown his way. “He killed that girl. Ain't that about right?”
“Let me guess,” She smiled, trying to seem relatable. “You've been speaking to the Hawkins Post? Chuck Bailey?” Well, she wasn’t wrong about that. He watched her for a moment. She did look quite young, but he knew better than to think that meant she was incapable. Wayne nodded in confirmation. “ Yeah, I used to work with him. I mean, that guy doesn't know his ass from his elbow. Let me tell your side of the story.”
Maybe she convinced him, maybe Wayne just needed to tell someone who would at least pretend to listen, but he opened his mouth and defended his nephew,
“Eddie, he may look dangerous, but he didn't do this. It just... ain't in his nature. No matter what anyone says, and they will say things, believe you me. But... This... wasn't Eddie,” Wayne thought back to the scene he’d arrived home to, then shut his eyes as if to block it out. It wasn’t something that Eddie could have done. Forget the demons on his shirts and the ear-splitting volume he likes his music, the kid was still just that, a kid.” The man who did this,” He continued, “Who killed that poor girl, he's... pure evil.”
"Man?” Nancy questioned, “You think you know who might've done this?”
“You ever hear the name Victor Creel?” he asked, and when she shook her head he felt almost bad for feeding her nightmares, but she asked for his opinion. So he told her about the boogieman that had haunted his youth, the one that never really went away, while keeping to himself images of Eddie lost and running with some monster of a man after him.
When the young reporter excused herself, Wayne nodded her off and, though he wouldn’t admit to it, sent a prayer more like a threat up to a God he knew didn’t care if Eddie lived or died. He did. He cared, and maybe that could be enough.
*
At a loss for what to do next, everyone at Steve’s house… floundered.
Max and Dustin were posted at the phone calling around to the Wheelers, Byers, and Sinclair's but no one was home, and their parents were getting sick of the ringing. Robin had found a notebook somewhere and had taken to writing down every detail Eddie, Chrissy, and Steve could give her. The three of them were hesitant to go anywhere while they were still unsure of what exactly was after them, or at least Chrissy.
Steve had basically force fed everyone lunch right after the kids arrived, and had thrown himself into putting together something good for dinner. He didn’t know if it was the unreasonable over protective voice in his head again, or if it really made sense, but something told him this could be their last good meal. So there he was, slaving away in his kitchen while Eddie and Chrissy tried to pretend not to cuddle on the couch, and Robin flipped frantically through her notes, rambling at him from her seat on the counter next to his cutting board,
“Max is pretty sure the body was Anne Carver, so we’ve got two Hawkins High seniors who were…cursed or whatever. The only other thing connecting them is Jason and the location, the trailer park. But nothing has ever happened there before?” She ran through the same issue a couple dozen times by now, trying to think of any other angle that might reveal the solution. Steve was half listening and nodding along as he began dunking the chicken breast in the egg mixture, then rolling it around in the breading. The methodic task calmed him at least a little bit.
“I’m going to talk to Eddie again, maybe he knows more about what this…wizard…Vecna could be,” Robin let out a frustrated sigh and hopped off the counter. “How the hell are you just cooking right now?”
“I need something to do,” he shrugged, “Plus it seems you’ve got the whole investigation thing under control.”
“Yeah, sure, it seems like it,” She scoffed, and moved to leave but he barred the way with his arm, careful to keep from touching her with his hands as they were practically breaded themselves.
“Rob,” he scolded gently, “you’re doing everything you can. You’re doing more than me, but- I mean, everyone is safe right now and that's the most we can ask for.”
“Yeah, okay,” she relented, with a half-hearted smile and a squeeze of his wrist.
Alone in the quiet kitchen, Steve was able to convince himself that it was just a normal night, he was prepping some dinner for the week, that he wasn’t scared. His refuge was interrupted by Chrissy, leaning up on the counter next to him as he washed off his hands. When he shut off the water she asked timidly,
“You need any help?”
“Sure!” he said a bit too eagerly, surprised by her offer, “You want to uh… shred the cheese, I’m just doing chicken parm.”
“Just,” she laughed, picking up the task given to her and getting to work. “There is a magic murderer after us and your first instinct is to put together an entire meal for the… host of people that have invaded your home.”
“Maybe not my first instinct,” he joked, “but yeah, someone has to take care of all of you.”
Conversation broke off as they set to work, Chrissy pulled the chicken from the oven and began layering the cheese over it, while Steve pulled a huge pot out of the cabinets and set to filling it.
“I’m sorry, by the way,” he offered up, earning a confused look from Chrissy. “Robin said I should apologize,” he explained, “not that that’s the only reason I’m saying it. I am, sorry I mean. I…scared you and that isn’t at all what I wanted to do, but I’m glad I was there, and that you’re alright.” Chrissy tried not to think of how the previous night could have ended, how Anne’s night had gone but managed to respond casually.
“I am too.” Surprisingly, she found she meant it. “Thanks for having us by the way, for… explaining all of this to us- Eddie and I.” Steve hummed at that but only spoke when Chrissy asked, “What?”
“Just… Eddie and you?”
“I’m- Jason,” she argued, and Steve let it go easily, sliding a cutting board with some broccoli on it in front of her. The two continued in companionable silence, passing ingredients to the other as needed but not feeling the need to speak much.
Eddie roped Max in to help him find the stuff the set the table and the kids took their usual seats across from each other, while Robin took one of the chairs crammed together on the short side of the table. This left Chrissy and Eddie also looking across at each other when Dustin dragged Eddie into the chair next to him.
Everyone was waiting there in their seats when Steve brought out the last dish. Eddie had his fork and knife in hand as if he was about to start banging them on the table, but was restraining himself. Max and Dustin squabbled over the serving spoons, batting each other's hands away trying to get to the food first and Steve couldn't be bothered to stop them as he took his chair at the head of the table alongside Robin.
“Children!” Eddie interrupted, letting his silverware clatter back down on his place mat. The flurry of sound got them to stop bickering for at least a moment so he continued while he had their attention, “Did you forget grace?”
“Screw off,” Dustin deadpanned, used to Eddie's antics, and served himself a scoop of pasta with a wet slap.
“Well, you could at least thank your mother for cooking this delicious meal,” Eddie said with a wave of the broccoli tongs, piling vegetables onto Max and Dustin's plates then after a pointed look from Steve, his own.
Dustin mumbled his thanks under his breath, and just to outdo him Max looked at Steve and clearly said, “Thank you, Steve.”
Even though she made a joke of it, Steve could tell a part of it was genuine.
“Of course Max, and thank you Chrissy for helping,” Steve returned, slipping into a strange sort of contentedness. For all that lead to this moment he was happy here, with his closest friends and possibly some new ones safe under his roof, and cared for.
They all ate peacefully, for the most part. Of course a couple times Dustin and Max started going at it but Eddie easily got between them and was able to break it up. If Steve was being honest with himself, seeing Eddie with the kids made him a bit jealous. They listened to him easily, whereas Steve telling them to do anything was met with at least a little bitching, if not outright refusal. Dustin loved the guy. He raved about what an amazing dungeon master Eddie was constantly, and he knew so much about all the books the kids loved. What did Steve have?
It didn’t matter, he told himself. He knew the kids cared, and that they trusted him. Steve reached back out for that happy feeling.
Everyone was still enjoying their dinner, pushing impending doom from their mind, and Steve's eyes wandered back to Eddie. Sure he chewed with his mouth half open most of the time, but it was because he couldn’t keep the smirk off his face as he continually added food to the kids' plates, kicked Robin under the table, or shot Chrissy a wink.
He was checking in on everyone, Steve realized. Constantly gauging their mood and redirecting them if they seemed to fall out of the conversation, in a way it was familiar to Steve. He constantly wanted to know the kids were alright. It’s why Robin stayed over whenever she could, and why he’d set up a phone in his room so they could call him anytime. Eddie did it differently, but Steve found himself…admiring the ease with which they accepted his help. Steve had not learned that sort of subtlety, and certainly couldn’t claim to have the sort of charm that radiated off of him.
When he’d been King Steve that charm had come from a big house, being decent at sports, and a reputation he’d done very little to earn. Eddie on the other hand built his charm from scratch. It came from the constant movement of his hands, highlighted by the chunky rings he apparently never took off, and the way his fingers flew, always grasping or clawing or curling away from some invisible force. Not only did any gesture take his whole body, but his mess of hair added to the chaos, billowing out in an extension of his mood.
Chrissy was enthralled by it. She ignored the scraps left on her plate and leaned towards Eddie. Her hair was back up in a ponytail, giving Steve a chance to take her in unobstructed. She was pretty, he admitted to himself, though it felt confusingly bitter. Her smile was bright and her laughter made the whole room feel lighter. He could see how she’s taken Hawkins High by storm- with her dedication to her sport, naturally good looks, sweet demeanor, and the way she ducked her head down to hide her giggles but looked up through her lashes. It wasn’t fake like the girls Steve let walk their way into his bed. No, Chrissy felt real.
Realizing he had been staring a bit too long, Steve forced his gaze back towards Eddie, recounting some story about a princess. Steve pictured Chrissy as the princess.
Eddie played with his hair a lot, Steve noticed. He pulled it in front of his face when he wanted to hide a taunting smile, shook it out whenever he laughed, and twirled it around his fingers unthinkingly. Steve wanted to run his hands through it.
That made Steve choke on his pasta, and as much as Robin thought slapping his back was helping, it was not.
“Okay, Stevie?” Robin asked as he washed down his shame with some water, hoping they attributed his redness to the choking and not the blush he knew it was.
“Yeah, Stevie,” Eddie smirked at the nickname, “You alright?” He most certainly was not alright.
“Yeah,” He wheezed, shooting Robin a desperate look, “all good.”
The rest of their meal went by without note, and afterward, Eddie corralled the kids into doing the cleanup.
Eddie had begun to insist that, since Chrissy helped with the cooking, she didn’t need to do any of the cleaning up. But Max interjected, asking Chrissy to find the Tupperware in Steve's kitchen to store the leftover food. Chrissy agreed, hearing Ms. Kelly’s advice about distracting herself after eating in her head. She chewed on the inside of her cheek as she shuffled around Steve’s kitchen, opening cabinets and drawers to find what she needed.
“You okay?” Eddie asked, asked as he began soaking the plates in the sink, Chrissy looking through the cabinet next to him.
“Oh, yeah, I’m good.” Chrissy nodded trying to reassure him, finally finding the containers, “I’ll be okay.”
“Okay,” Eddie trailed off, looking at her, not fully convinced, “Let me know if you’re not, yeah?”
Chrissy nodded in agreement as she headed to the other counter where Max brought in the dishes of leftover chicken and pasta. Chrissy carefully arranged the food, taking her time.
“Steve is a good cook, right?” Max said to Chrissy, bring another dish over.
“Yeah,” Chrissy nodded, “I’m surprised he did so much for tonight.”
Max nodded, “Yeah, he cooks when he’s stressed, gives him time to think. Last summer we all came over to swim and I broke my wrist. He blamed himself and spent a whole day making chicken noodle soup from scratch for me.”
“Wow, that’s a lot.” Chrissy snapped the lids onto the containers.
“Yeah, it’s how he shows he cares, I guess.” Max shrugged, “Food seems to be like that for a lot of people, it's its own love language.”
“Hm,” Chrissy thought for a moment, “That’s true, I guess I’ve never thought about that before.”
“Yeah, even the bad stuff, like cauliflower or mushrooms ,” She made a face at the idea of them, “feel worth it to eat when someone else cooks for you.”
“That’s a nice way to think about it,” Chrissy said, realizing that the pointed words from this girl she didn’t know were more than just chatter to fill the silence.
Max leaned in close, lowering her voice so only Chrissy could hear in the large kitchen, “By the way, Munson has been staring you down all night,”
Chrissy glanced over her shoulder, meeting Eddie’s eyes for a moment before he quickly looked away, suddenly very interested in the design of the plate he was drying.
“Seriously?” Dustin grimaced, looking back over his shoulder where the girls were packing away their leftovers. Steve had made too much as usual.
“What?” Eddie feigned ignorance, even as he could feel Chrissy’s gaze boring into the back of his skull.
“You’ve been making eyes at Chrissy Cunningham all day,” Dustin stated, point of fact, “What happened to balls in the laundry basket, down with the popular crowd? I mean Chrissy Cun-”
“Dude,” Eddie hissed, snapping the towel he was using to dry with at the kid, “stop saying her full name like that you freak.”
“You’re the freak,” Dustin snapped back, before drifting into a more somber mood as he scrubbed at the casserole dish. “Do you really think you have a chance? I mean you really are a freak and she's…”
“Okay dude,” Eddie shut him down, “So you get to have a girlfriend who’s hotter than Phoebe Cates and crazy smart but what, the rest of us have to suffer? Shut the fuck up and finish the dishes.” Thankfully, he relented, leaving Eddie to wonder after his own desirability.
He knew that Chrissy was dating Jason, so he’d been avoiding thinking about how every interaction he had with Chrissy was slowly wrapping him around her finger, but of course, Henderson went and messed that up. The thing was the kid wasn’t wrong, he wasn’t what any normal person would consider good boyfriend material, at least not in a town as small as Hawkins. Eddie was a freak, and he liked it that way, but Chrissy didn’t seem entirely put off by his strange nature. He didn’t know if whatever affection she appeared to have for him would stick around once the world went back to normal, or if she really thought about the fact that he was a super senior with no real plans.
Then there was also the whole, queer thing to contend with. Sure guys thought it was hot when two girls made out at parties, but Eddie didn’t think it went the other way. Plus that was just for show, and he didn’t want his hard earned self accepted off his gayer side to be played off as some joke. Eddie’s identity was a carefully constructed mosaic, and he wasn’t about to put down his bisexuality.
Then he remembered this was all futile. Chrissy was with Jason. It didn’t matter, and yet he found himself hoping she could at least be an accepting friend.
*
When the rest of the group peeled away to clean up, Steve grabbed Robin by the hand and dragged her into his bathroom, doing his best to look normal, and sane, not like everything he’d ever known to be true had been blown to bits by Eddie Munson.
Unlike the star court bathroom, this was a particular safe haven for Steve.
The counters were full of bottles. Some hair products that he had tried and never touched again. Some were completely empty, their labels a reminder for him to buy more, and a majority were part-way used. When Robin had started staying over, she tried to claim some of the counter space for herself, figuring it would be fine to move some of the abundance of bottles under the sink since Steve had cleaned out half his dresser for her, but that had been a mistake. He had simply steered her into the guest bathroom next door and rushed back to put everything where it belonged.
Steve would make room for Robin almost everywhere in his life, but not here.
This bathroom was where he’d put on that mask of the perfect high school heartthrob, day after day. It had become a sort of ritual somewhere along the way, the intensity with which he looked over his appearance, every hair in place, every muscle trained into a date-winning smile. In recent years the ritual has changed. He still found comfort in his hair, his best feature, but instead of putting on the mask, Robin had slowly talked him into looking through it. ‘Finding himself’ she called it.
Right now he didn’t want to look at the mirror, so he sank to the floor leaning against the cupboards under the sink, and dragged Robin down next to him.
“What’s going on Steve-o? You’re scaring me a little,” She laughed, easily going down next to him.
“I think I’ve found my Steve Harrington,” He said, eyes staring blankly ahead.
“You...” Robin tried to puzzle out his meaning but couldn’t. “What?”
“I think…” he took a deep breath to settle himself, and did his best to speak slowly, knowing he wouldn’t be able to repeat himself. “I found my own Tammy Thompson, and he’s come with his own Steve Harrington.” Robin choked, and tried to read Steve expression, to make sure he was saying what she thought he was saying, but he’d turned away, biting his knuckles between his teeth.
“Steve,” She tried, but he shook his head and let out a cry muffled by his hand, breaking her heart. “Steve, please.” With careful hands, she pulled his hand down, wincing at the red marks already left on his hand, and turned him back to face her. “Steve,” She treaded carefully. “Are you saying-”
“I think Eddie Munson is really pretty,” he started, and if they were clenched around Robins she would have said he was ticking revelations off on his fingers, “I’m sick of dating when none of it’s real, I want someone for real, you said I could like both, and I really want to wash his hair.”
Robin stared at his aghast, trying to process everything. Steve barreled right on, “I mean it’s like the guy goes through all that effort of growing out that hair, but he doesn't take care of it. What the hell's that about? But then I was thinking maybe no one showed him how, and that made me think-”
“Steve,” Robin cut him off, her tone serious but quickly dissolved into giggles. “You’re telling me you never looked twice at a guy, but in the face of 'the freak's' greasy ass hair you decided that what you really wanted- in the middle of the world ending, I might add- was that you want to wash it.”
“Yes,” Steve blurted, then slapped both hands back over his mouth trying to contain the crazed laughter now spilling out of him even as the tears he'd been holding back lingered in the corners of his eyes.
Without a second thought, they both fell into each other, laughing so hard it brought on another wave of tears, and left them clutching their sore stomachs.
“I love you, dingus,” Robin said gently as they helped each other off the floor.
“I know, I know, you too,’ Steve mockingly brushed her off, but still wrapped an arm around her and dropped a kiss on top of her head as they went to get ready for bed.
Steve wasn’t happy with the way Munson was treating one of his kids. So unhappy in fact, that he forces himself into their club leader’s van to see what he’s getting up to with Chrissy Cunningham, and maybe it’s a good thing he’s so paranoid because it might just save her life.
Or, the one where Chrissy doesn’t die in the Munson trailer, and, despite the world-ending, the king(former) and queen(current) of Hawkins High cannot take their eyes off Eddie Munson
Read on AO3 (content warnings in notes on A03)
In the ambulance, Steve got shoved in one of the little fold-down seats, and could only watch as Eddie continued to bleed out on the gurney. Steve allowed himself one shaking breath with every pathetic beat of Eddie's heart that sent more blood gushing out against the fresh gauze pads the paramedics held against his stomach. He sat with his hands on his knees, palms facing up as if pleading with god, and tried to move as little as possible to keep from feeling the way Eddie's blood dried in the creases and knuckled on his hands.
He felt almost completely numb except for that grating drag of air into his lungs that felt a lot like ‘You die I die, you die, I die, breathe in, breathe out, breathe in, breathe out..’ The vehicle bounced and swerved along and Steve didn’t think he was even blinking, unwilling to tear his eyes away from Eddie even when his view was obscured by legs and hands all rushing to keep him alive.
“What attacked him?” Someone asked, waving a gloved hand in front of his face.
“Bats?” he answered blankly.
“What? No,” the medic argued, “it was bigger than that.”
“I- I don’t know what-” Steve cut himself off, what the hell was he supposed to tell them? That monster from a wrong version of Hawkins tried to have him for dinner? “They looked like bats. They got me too.” His voice was even, gaze still locked on the too-still body held behind the person trying to talk to him.
“That doesn’t help,” they murmured to themself, and Steve cringed, wishing he had a way of explaining, knowing it might help Eddie.
“They got me too,” Steve added, just as they started to turn away. His index finger twitched, pointing minuscule to the bandages hidden under his blood-soaked shirt. He didn’t look down at it, didn’t want to see the mess of Eddie’s life blood wasted down his front.
“Well I guess we know they aren't venomous then,” they replied snappily before switching off with their partner to hold Eddie's guts inside of him.
The arrival at the hospital was a blur. Sirens were going everywhere, and a flood of people waiting in and outside the lobby. The police cars that had picked up Nancy, Robin, and Dustin pulled up beside the ambulance as they carted Eddie out, pushing Steve towards his friends and the gathered crowd of people all looking crazed and desperate to get past the front desk. Steve thought for a horrible moment that they were here for Eddie, that they still thought he was the killer and were to make sure he stayed dead, but then he saw the bandages and the blood staining the assembled citizens of Hawkins, same as him.
Keeping up with the policeman and tuning out Dustin calling his name, Steve raced along next to Eddie being wheeled past the swinging doors until a young nurse stopped him with a hand on his chest.
“You can’t go back there.”
“I need to stay with him-” he tried to insist but she wasn’t hearing it.
“Your friend is going into an emergency surgery-”
“That man is under arrest,” the cop cut in. Steve turned to him furious, intending to chew him and his ridiculously cliche mustache a new one but the nurse beat him to it.
“That patient is going into emergency surgery, like I said,” she condescended, “ and it’s packed enough in here already, you need to stay out here.”
“But-”
“No,” She said a final time before turning away and letting the swinging doors flap shut behind her. As they swung in and out, slowly settling all the way shut, Steve caught glimpses of Eddie lying prone on his bed rushing further and further away
“Steve!” Someone called not for the first time, and a hand grabbed at his arm. Startled out of his single-minded focus, he turned to face Claudia Henderson. Her face was wracked with the same anxiety he always found there dialed up to ten. Her scrubs looked wrinkled like she had been rushing to get to work, Steve supposed the influx of patients around him had something to do with that.
“Someone said Dustin was with you! Is he okay? Where-” She tried to ask but was cut off by a voice rising above the crowd,
“Mom! Steve!”
The child in question came barreling through the lobby, pushing anyone injured or not out of his way. Letting out a relieved sob, Claudia pulled him tight against her chest blubbering under her breath how glad she was that he was okay, that she loved him, and was never letting him out of her sight. Uncaring, Dustin struggled in her embrace trying to get a word.
Eventually, his mom pulled back enough for him to demand,
“Is Eddie going to be okay?”
“Eddie Munson!” She squealed, over Steve’s shaky,
“I don’t know.”
Claudia looked at her son horrified.
“You don’t mean the one who’s been running around killing and kidnapping- Dusty!” she gasped “You weren’t kidnapped, were you!?”
“No!” Dustin shouted back angrily, “Eddie didn’t hurt anyone! We were trying to save him, or he was trying to save me but he got hurt, and I don’t know if-if…” he trailed off as his lip began to quiver and he pushed back into his mother's arms, letting her hold him as he dissolved into terrified tears.
“Steven…” She asked, concern written on her face as she considered the boy's words, “Is that true?”
“Yes?” he hesitated, trying to piece together what exactly he could explain to Claudia, “I mean, uh, yes, yeah, it’s true, Eddie- he saved Dustin.”
“Alright,” She nodded, then repeated again to herself, “Alright.” She dropped a kiss to Dustin’s curls and tightened her hold on him, then it was as if the rest of the world fell away. As the two were embraced Steve felt like he was intruding on their family moment.
Leaving Dustin in the best hands possible, Steve coolly pulled away with a glance over his shoulder at the heartwarming, if heart-wrenching, scene, and made his way to where Nancy had found a corner to congregate.
With them, they had both Sinclairs, but Chrissy and Max were missing.
“Were are-”
“Fine,” Lucas insisted forcefully, Steve had to resist from jerking back in shock.
“They were both unconscious,” Erica filled in, with a hesitant hand on her brother's shoulder. It was off-putting to see Erica not only polite but soothing. Steve took in Lucas’s tear-stained eyes and his fist clenched at his side. It was so unlike either of them- they were terrified.
“Hey,” Steve started shakily, looking to Nancy or Robin for help but they both looked just as lost. “Hey,” he tried again after clearing his throat, “they’re here now, they’re getting looked at and they're going to be alright.”
He settled a hand on each of their shoulders, even though he half expected them to shake it off, but they surprised him when they pulled in closer simultaneously. It was a quick but strong hug, and they both pulled away almost immediately, but Lucas let Erica continue to cling to his arm.
“Everyone’s going to be okay, okay?” he insisted, earning a weak nod and a meager, ‘okay’ from Lucas.
“Are either of you hurt? Do you need a doctor?”
“No, just roughed up,” Lucas admitted, free hand coming up to touch the bruise forming on his face.
“One of your loser teammates tackled me,” Erica admitted, “but I kneed him in the balls…hard, plus they got arrested.” Steve took that to mean she was okay, so he gestured to Robin and said,
“You guys go call your parents, alright? I’m going to get a hold of Ms. Mayfield and-”
“Where’s Eddie?” Lucas cut in, and Steve turned away to hide his facial expression.
“He’s gonna be okay,” he said.
“But-”
“Please, Lucas,” he pleaded, holding back tears, “call your mom. He’s going to be alright.”
Obediently Robin led them away to the line that had formed to use the phone but kept casting glances at Steve. He knew she wanted to talk, to ask him how he was doing, but he knew if she did that he wouldn’t be able to hold it in for a second later. Apparently, Nancy knew that too.
“Do I get an assignment too?”
“Uh,” Steve stumbled, forgetting, as much they failed to show themselves to each other, Nancy understood him on some level. “Yeah, you should probably call home too.” Nancy winced at the idea, “but if you got Mr. Munson’s number… he should be here.”
Nancy watched him for a moment, trying to get a read on him.
“You really shouldn’t have lied-”
“He’s alive Nancy,” he cut her off harshly. “Fuck,” he sighed, running a hand through his hair. “At least he was. They said he was going into surgery, so his family should be here.”
“Yeah alright,” She let out a tight breath and nodded, focusing on now that she had a mission. “I’ll get it done, you get checked out, those bats were bad news.”
Somehow Claudia was suddenly there, huffing and chastising Steve for not saying anything about being hurt, all the while keeping Dustin in what could only be called a headlock.
She took both boys into the back and led them through the white and sterile hallways with other workers rushing past. Rooms filled to the brim already, they had set up curtains hanging all around creating space for patients wherever they could. Claudia left Dustin in a breakroom despite his attempt to argue that he stayed with Steve. She wasn’t hearing it anymore, and Steve understood where Dustin got his stubborn nature.
Back through the winding hallways of curtains, Steve was shoved into one of those cubicles and down onto a fold-out chair.
Claudia pulled up a stainless steel bowl, and plenty of rags and started to wipe the blood off his hands. She scrubbed it from under his nails and rubbed it off where it tried to stain his skin.
“Thank you,” he mumbled, letting her wipe off his face even as the act brought him dangerously close to crying. She put him back together, but gave him this space and carefully kept her gaze away from his watering eyes. Being a mom of an emotional teenage boy herself, she knew Steve wouldn’t appreciate his outburst being noticed.
“You're welcome,” Claudia insisted, an unspoken offer of help going along with it. “Dusty said you were hurt? Something about bat bites?”
“Yeah bats,” he laughed dryly, lifting up his shirt and pulling at the bandages that had dried to him, but she hissed and stopped it before he could rip open the scabs again.
“Oh, oh, just hold on… I’ll send over a Doctor,” she told him, picking up the red-stained rags with her as she went to leave. He nodded absentmindedly, but jerked a hand up when she started to move,
“Wait! Has someone called Mrs. Mayfield?”
“Yes, honey,” She assured him and smiled endearingly, “we got a hold of her.”
Let out a long sigh Steve let his head fall back against the back of the chair as she rushed away.
The ceiling was water-stained and yellow, the same as the fluorescent lights. Through the thin curtain, Steve could hear the blend of many different voices and tried to put the anxious thought swirling in his head to rest.
Re-bandaged and cleared to go, Steve was released back into the waiting room so someone else could be ushered inside. Waiting there for him were not just the kids, but now also their parents.
Claudia was doing her best to assure a stressed Mr. and Mrs. Sinclair that their children would be alright but Lucas would probably want some ice for the nasty black eye he was developing.
“Who did you say hit you again?” his dad questioned.
“I didn’t,” Lucas reminded, but his usual sarcasm had been exhausted, but it seemed he had enough gall to demand of Ms. Henderson, “Are you going to let me see Max or not?”
“I’m sorry sweetie…” She shook her head sorrowfully and patted Erica on the arm before spotting Steve. “Feeling better, honey?”
“Yes, Ma’am, thank you,” he said honestly.
“That’s good to hear. Look after yourself,” she told him and headed back off to work.
“Steve, do you know what’s going on?” Mr. Sinclair asked him, crossing his arms as he looked between his two stubborn children.
“I do… but I think we should talk to the police before anyone else,” Steve told him, then sighed “or honestly wait until the feds get here.”
“Why? What is going on?” his wife tried to push, “is it true? Did you come in with Eddie Munson?”
“I think Lucas and Erica want to go home and get a good night's rest,” Steve said, pointedly avoiding any of their questions. He gazed over to Nancy, who appeared to be having a similar argument with her own mother. Steve shivered Nancy and Karen Wheeler were two forces he would not want to get between even on his best day.
“No, I-” Lucas started to argue, but Steve knew what he was after.
“And I’ll call when there’s news on Max. Alright?” Lucas crossed his arms, looking the spitting image of his father, but in unison, Mrs. Sinclair and Erica rolled their eyes. “Alright?” Steve repeated.
“Fine,” Lucas spat.
“Hey, I’m serious,” Steve assured him, “get some sleep and I’ll call the moment anything changes.” The younger boy finally relented and offered Steve a half-hearted smile.
He’d take what he could get.
“Thank you, Steve, as always,” Mrs. Sinclair nodded at him as she led her family out of the hospital and home safe.
Three down, Steve counted in his head. Now he just needed to call Mrs. Mayfield and see that-
“Steve?” Nancy called her mother following close behind her looking perturbed. “My mom’s going to take me home. I left a message for Wayne at the plant but…”
“It’s okay,” Steve assured her, then asked, “What happened?” unsure if he really wanted the answer, but knew he needed it.
“Erica said Jason and his buddies showed up, Jason shot Chrissy, and Max… got Vecnad.”
“Is she-” he gasped, but Nancy kept talking.
“Her arm and leg were… snapped, and Lucas said her eyes looked strange. Pale and filmy, but she was awake before they knocked her out in the ambulance.”
“Shit,” He swore under his breath, “That’s a lot.”
“Yeah.”
“And where’s Robin? Did she-”
“Fine,” Nancy reassured him. “She wanted to get looked over,” she laughed, “but we can give her a ride home…did you need one, too?”
“No,” Steve shook his head, looking back over to Claudia where she was discussing something with the poor girl who happened to be stuck behind the front desk that night. “I think I’m going to stick around until we know that everyone’s alright.”
“Somehow I knew you’d say that,” Nancy said with a knowing smile. Karen shot him a concerned look, but he waved them both off with an easy smile and a pained laugh.
“Yeah, yeah, I’ll see you… tomorrow?”
“Tomorrow,” Nancy confirmed and went to collect Robin.
Steve knew that he should probably say goodbye to Robin before Nancy shipped her off to her parents, but he couldn’t find the energy to properly handle her brand of panic right now. His feet were tired; his bones were tired, but his job wasn't done yet.
Glancing at the clock told him it was well into the morning and that he’d been here for a few hours already. More time than he realized had passed when he was in the back getting looked over.
For a moment he floundered, faded back into the crowd of patients waiting to be seen, unsure of how to help when all there was left to do was wait.
Collapsing into one of the shitty waiting room chairs earned him dirty looks from the family members of the other soon-to-be-patients on either side of him, but he couldn’t bring himself to care. Without anything else around to distract him, Steve was inundated by worries he’d been shoving to the side since he’d found Dustin crying over Eddie’s body.
Eddie's blood was still soaked into his clothes. It was Steve's fault he'd gotten hurt.
Max was his fault too. He should have sent her home, screwed the world so they could have dealt with it. Nancy could have found a way.
Eddie and Chrissy too should have been locked in Rick’s house with some of Eddie's tapes and a radio, and everything would have been alright. They’d be happily wrapped up in each other's arms, and Steve wouldn’t have to be jealous. Maybe, come tomorrow there would be no one to be jealous of or for.
He ran his hands through his hair, forgetting just how dirty it was and smearing its filth back onto his hands. Wiping them on his pants only made it worse.
It felt like everything was converging as if Steve was this sinkhole dragging everything in and crushing himself in the process, and there was no escaping himself.
He was only pulled out of his sudden spiral by someone shouting a familiar name,
“Mr. Munson please calm down if. If you’d- Mr. Munson!”
Steve hadn’t met Wayne Munson before, but that didn’t stop him from jumping up to his defense, or, more accurately, Eddie’s.
The new Chief and the same lackey cop Steve had argued with earlier were trying to stop Wayne from getting past even the hospital entrance, but the man wasn’t having it. He didn’t even bother to argue with them, simply made direct eye contact with one of the nurses and did his best to barrel past the policemen pleading with him. Steve shoved his way into the argument, pushing the stupid mustache’s hands off of Wayne and looking desperately to the same nurse for help. She just rolled her eyes and dipped into the back.
“You again!?” Mustache exclaimed, throwing his hands up.
“Harrington?” Powell asked, confused by Steve’s presence.
“Mr. Munson,” Steve turned to Wayne, standing back facing the cops to address him, “They took Eddie back for surgery, but I haven’t seen him since the ambulance-”
“Who the hell are you?” Wayne growled, annoyed by all these people getting in his way when he just wanted to see Eddie.
“I’m Steve. Steve Harrington.”
“Harrington?” Wayne spat, “What the hell do you want with my boy?”
“Nothing,” Steve said defensively, “I mean, I want him to be alright, I carried him here, out of the- to the ambulance. He was attacked but-”
“Who was it?” Wayne demanded, Steve shook his head.
“I think we’ll be the one asking questions,” Mustache interjected, trying to push past Steve again, but the savior of Steve’s whole day was there once again.
“I think you’ll be the ones leaving my patients alone, Officer Callahan,” Claudia broke through to stand by Steve's side, looking Wayne up and down as she tried to get a read on the situation.
“Mrs. Henderson,” Chief Powell said calmly, “we’re just trying to get a handle on the situation.”
“Like how you got a handle on the situation by letting our children run away with a murderer on the loose?” She snapped back, “I believe this man’s son is a patient under observation, and I’ll be taking him to see Edward unless you have an actual reason to arrest an unconscious boy.”
“That ‘boy’ is 19,” Callahan scoffed, looking like a put-upon toddler.
“That boy was on death's door earlier today!” Steve bit, shoving a finger into his chest.
“Steven,” Claudia cut off shortly, causing him to shrink back. She had never snapped at him like that. It could not have been an easy day, and he knew he wasn’t making anything easier. “You can’t see your friends if you get arrested for attacking a police officer.”
“Eddie?” Steve asked hopefully, unable to shake the feeling of being a stray dog begging for scraps.
“Yes,” Claudia smiled kindly, “Edward has been stabilized and was just moved to a room of his own if you’d like to sit with him.”
“Yes!” Steve agreed too eagerly, “Shit, I mean if that’s alright with you Mr. Munson.”
“Whatever is fine,” he said, even as he eyed Steve warily, “as long as I get to see my nephew.”
“Of course, right this way sir,” Claudia gestured to them through those stupid swinging doors.
“Wayne is fine,” he told her, and happily followed. Steve trailed after them, shooting a smirk at the two police officers left floundering in the lobby.
Claudia showed them to a small room and shut the door behind them as she hurried off to find a doctor to fill in Wayne.
Two chairs were waiting for them, but Steve was stuck back against the door. Wayne rushed to Eddie’s side, taking his nephew's hand in his own. Eddie’s skin was pale, looking uncharacteristically naked without his heavy rings.
Everything about him felt wrong, Steve thought. His arms were bare and the white sheet was tucked up around the neck of his pale blue hospital gown. If it wasn’t for the gentle rising and falling of his chest and the steady beat of a heart monitor, Steve wouldn’t believe he was alive.
Wayne fell into one of the chairs, all the fight went out of him and clung to Eddie like he might try to get up and run away. Steve wished he felt like laughing because that was something he could imagine doing.
“You carried him, you said?” Wayne asked, not looking away from Eddie’s face.
“Yessir,” Steve replied instinctually, finally moving away from the door and taking the seat against the wall.
“You know who did this to him?” he asked, the tinge of a threat coloring his words.
“It was more of a what,” Steve offered, “the…person actually killing people had guard…animals.”
“Kid, I have no idea what you’re implying. Give it to me straight.”
Eddie made a soft sound in his drug-induced sleep, and even though he was hours from being conscious they both waited attentively to see if he would move again. When nothing happened Steve tried to come up with an acceptable explanation.
“I- I’m not implying anything, some of the details are just a bit… out there,” Steve said, really hoping he could get away with the truth.
“But they aren’t after him anymore?” Wayne affirmed.
“No, not the things that attacked him,” Steve agreed, “Jason might be, though, Carver?”
“The one calling Eddie a demon.”
“Yeah, that one.”
They fell into an awkward silence as they reached the end of Steve's information and Wayne's willingness to carry on a conversation with a stranger while Eddie clung to life by the yards of silk thread holding his stomach together.
Yet, he didn’t ask Steve to leave, and soon enough he was snoring right alongside Eddie, and Wayne was unsure what to do with the extra kid Eddie had picked up somewhere on the run.
*
What felt like only a second later, Robin shook Steve awake softly whispering,
“Hey, you alive?”
“Wha-” He grumbled, wiping a hand over his face and taking in his unexpected surroundings. The curtains on the window had been pulled closed, but in the darkness of the room, the thin line of sunlight shining around them made it clear it was well into the day.
“What’s happening?” Steve tried again, slightly more awake.
“Brought you some clothes,” Robin continued to whisper. That's when Steve noticed Wayne Munson was still hunched over Eddie, snoring loudly. “Figured you’d want to get out of those rags, and maybe go see Chrissy and Max? The Police Chief is posted outside, just waiting for Eddie to wake up. The town is in shambles, Steve,” she explained, quickly forgetting she was trying to be quiet. “The earthquakes in the Upside Down happened here too, and there’s these giant… cracks, just running through town. They took out a whole row of houses, that's why all these people are here, and no one knows what’s going on, and the police still think that Eddie did it, but I don’t know what to tell them-”
“Robin!” Steve cut off with a harsh whisper and quickly stood to pull her into a hug. She tucked her arms between them and let out a muffled shout into his shoulder. “It’s okay, someone’s going to show up with a cover-up sooner or later. Mall fire, remember?”
“Yeah, mall fire,” she let out a panicked laugh but refused to move from where she was pressed against Steve. “They weren’t trying to blame us for that one though.”
“No,” he laughed, “and I’m pretty sure the drugs helped with the initial freak out.”
“Think I could steal some from Eddie?” Robin tried joking, but at the mention of their friend and the sight of his unconscious and sickly-looking form, she couldn’t help but let out a sob along with a laugh.
“He’s going to be alright, right?” Robin asked, finally pulling away from Steve to circle the bed and squeeze gently at Eddie’s free hand.
“Yeah, I think he is,” Steve told her, watching the way her eyes flitted over Eddie’s face. There was a sad sort of hope there, just wishing for tomorrow to be a bit better. Steve stood off to the side, wishing for all the world that he could be normal for a second and hold his friend's hand without thinking of the tightness in his chest that still wanted more.
“That’s his uncle? Wayne? Mama Henderson said he was in here with you,” Robin said eventually.
Steve nodded, “I should probably give him space. Have you seen Max yet? Chrissy?”
“No, but Henderson said Max’s mom was here. He went home by the way,” Robin remembered, “I caught him and his mom when I came back on their way out. Her shift ended so they went home.” She gave Eddie's shoulder another squeeze and headed out into the hall with Steve right behind her.
“I was going to go see Chrissy if you’ve got Max?” Robin explained and listed off.
“Yeah, good plan,” Steve said, unable to put any feeling behind the words.
“Hey,” she stopped in the narrow hallway, and Steve wished she wouldn’t. He felt like he was taking up too much space where no one needed him. “Are you alright?”
That was a bad question, Steve knew by the way it sent a jolt down his spine urging him to bolt, just start running and never look back.
“I don’t know,” he admitted reluctantly, but was unwilling to lie to Robin, “I just wished someone else was here to figure this all out. Hopper used to have this all under control, or at least Joyce was here,” he sighed and shook his head, wrapping himself in his arms.
“I don’t know,” he repeated, “I- never mind I’m going to check on Max.”
“No, Steve, wait,” Robin tried to stop him, but he was already moving.
“I’ll be fine,” he shouted down the hall, trying to walk backward but knocking into a cart. “Fuck, ow, just… I’ll see you later.” He turned the corner and didn’t look back.
Max was waiting for him.
*
Max was talking to a psychologist, and Steve was starting to think that maybe he should too. Mrs. Mayfield, however, was lingering outside. Her eyes were sunken and red from crying and she was taking long drags from a cigarette held loosely between her fingers.
“Mrs. Mayfield?” he asked, approaching cautiously. She looked at him skeptically for a long moment,
“Steve, right? You watch the boys for Sue and Claudia.”
“Yeah, I-”
“And you were there- you were there for the mall fire,” she said accusingly. “You were there when- when-” she couldn’t bring herself to say Billy’s name, “and now you’re here again for this? What exactly are you up to where-”
“Woah, I’m not up to anything-”
“Well kids keep ending up…hurt,” she pointed out, gesturing wildly with the lit cigarette. “And someone needs to give me some answers because the cops sure as hell don’t know what’s going on!”
“I don’t either,” He said, throwing his arms up, “not really.”
“Well my daughter is bedridden, and they’ve brought in another shrink, but she isn’t saying anything so if you know something-”
“I don’t- I can’t-”
“Then what the hell are you doing here!?” She demanded smoke curling from her mouth and nose.
“I just wanted to see how she was doing,” Steve told her, trying to calm her down. “I promised Sinclair I’d call when there was news.”
“Then call him,” Mrs. Mayfield relented, “but he won’t be able to see her until she’s released. Hell,” she laughed humorlessly, “I don’t know how you’re even here.”
“It doesn’t matter,” he waved off, desperate to get away from her anger if he wasn’t going to be seeing Max. “I’ll be around if you… need anything,” he offered lamely, and turned back down the hallway, wanting to find a bathroom where he could wash off this whole mess of a morning.
He probably should have just gone home, but he wasn’t ready to leave until he knew everyone was awake and at least not dying if not okay.
Letting himself into a break room Steve wasn’t entirely sure he was supposed to be in, he locked the door to the single-stall restroom and stripped off the clothes still caked in Upside Down filth. Yesterday they had all been brand new, well except Eddie's vest. He shoved the War Zone clothes into the small trash can tucked next to the toilet, and leaned over the sink taking in his appearance.
His hair was wild, sticking every which way, and dirty. His face looked better than it had after Star Court but there were still small scrapes with grime worked into them. Methodically, he used paper towels to wipe himself clean as best he could. Thankfully, given the layers he’s been wearing most of his was relatively clean from their second trip into the Upside Down, and Claudia had cleaned out the bite of his side yesterday.
To finish off, he hunched over the sink and fit his head under the faucet letting cold water run over his neck and rinsing off his hair as he wriggled, trying to get every angle. Straightening himself up, water dripped down his back and over his shoulders.
The man looking back at him in the mirror was a stranger. He couldn’t reckon who he’d become in the last week with any version of himself from before. There was so little left of him when you took away the context of school, Robin, the kids. Steve Harrington did not know how to exist in a void; he had been made to respond to whatever was thrown at him, but as the end set in Steve couldn’t figure out who he was now.
Shoving that aside, he got dressed and returned to the one space left for him in this place.
*
When Chrissy came to, she kept her eyes closed as long as she could. She knew where she was instantly, the smell of betadine and the sound of even beeps and whirring cluing her in. She hated hospitals. The lights gave her a headache and she felt so grimy after sitting in a hospital bed. Plus, her mother was here. Chrissy could feel her mom’s hand against the back of her own. She knew she should be grateful for someone being there for her, but her mom wasn't there for her. Her mom was there because of her, and she’d be sure to make it known. Chrissy considered just going back to sleep, letting the pain meds take her under for a few more hours, maybe forever.
The memory of Max falling to the attic floor jolted her out of her thoughts. She winced at the tightness in her side as she sat up, eyes flying open. Instead of her mother’s irritated and indifferent gaze, she found Robin staring at her with wide eyes. She had been the one holding Chrissy’s hand, not her mother.
“Chrissy, oh my god,” Robin stood and bent over Chrissy, pulling her into a hug.
“Oh my god, I’m so glad you’re awake.”
“Robin?” Chrissy winced at the pressure and the sudden rush of blood to her head, “Where’s Max? Where is everyone?”
“Everyone is…alive,” Robin assured, backing off when she realized she squeezed too tight. Chrissy could sense the undertone to Robin’s words. Everyone was alive, she said, not everyone was okay.
“What happened?” Chrissy leaned back against the bed, closing her eyes as she spoke. The ringing in her ears and fluorescent lights made her dizzy.
“Jason shot you.” Robin started to explain, voice frantic.
“I know Rob, I was there,” Chrissy gently cut her off, lowering her voice when she continued, “I mean, what happened in the Upside Down.”
“Oh, right,” Robin laughed sheepishly, shaking her head. Chrissy slowly opened her eyes, blinking to adjust them to the light as Robin explained, “So much… I… it was awful.
“Hey, it’s okay,” Chrissy assured, knowing what happened wouldn’t change anything, but she didn’t care. She needed to know anyway. She loved Robin, she realized. Chrissy thought she'd probably die for her, but she was awful at explaining things, “Just, start from the beginning okay? It’s not like I’m going to be out of here anytime soon.”
“Okay, yeah, from the beginning,” Robin nodded and then started to explain.
Robin, with the help of Chrissy’s interjections, managed to stay on track enough to explain what happened in the Upside Down. Towards the end, though, Robin began to spiral.
“It was my fault,” Her voice shook, “I fucking tripped, Chrissy. My inability to walk like a normal fucking person almost killed everyone! Oh my god… I’m so sorry, I’m-”
“Rob. Robin, stop!” Chrissy pulled Robin’s attention away from her own panic, reaching out and grabbing her hand, “Vecna knew, okay? It wasn’t your fault, Vecna knew you were there already. He knew… everything.”
“What?” Robin was leaning towards Chrissy, elbows on the hospital bed as she tried
to understand, “How? Why did he let us get so far?”
“I don’t think he knew the exact details, but he knew enough,” Chrissy explained, “He could see everything, and… he knew we couldn’t do it. We couldn’t get rid of him.”
“But we did?” Robin said, “We killed him, the plan worked… mostly.”
“Because of Eleven.” Chrissy said, “That girl she… she was in my head, Robin.”
“What?” Robin’s eyebrows furrowed together as she tried to understand, “What do you mean?”
“I don’t know how,” Chrissy rubbed at her face, shaking her head as she tried to make sense of it, “But she was there, in my head, fighting Vecna. I don’t know.”
Before she could continue a nurse peeked through the curtain, drawing Robin and Chrissy’s attention.
“We can talk about it more with Steve,” Robin said fast and under her breath to Chrissy, who nodded in response.
“Well, look who’s awake,” The nurse said kindly, like she was talking to someone much younger than Chrissy, “How are you feeling Christine?”
“Sorry, Chrissy,” The nurse switched names easily, even going as far as to update it on the laminated paper pinned to the curtain, “I’m sure you’re hurting pretty bad, it’s almost time for your next dose of morphine, in about…” She looked back at the paper, “About half an hour, think you can tough it out until then? If not, I can give it to you early.”
“I think I can wait,” Chrissy said, a weird sense of pride keeping her from taking the meds early.
“Okay, good. I’m Nurse Tully, by the way, you can call me Charlotte if you want,” She introduced herself, writing down Chrissy’s vitals from the machines she was attached to, “I’ll be your main nurse for at least today, okay?”
Chrissy just nodded, sitting still as Charlotte prompted her to open her mouth for a thermometer. Robin was still there, holding Chrissy’s hand.
“Is your mom around?” Charlotte asked, eyeing Robin as she noticed the other high schooler in the room.
“She went home to get Chrissy a change of clothes,” Robin explained, “She left about half an hour ago, but she should be back soon.”
“And you are?” Charlotte asked, confused by Robin's presence.
“My cousin,” Chrissy lied easily, “She’s staying with me until mom gets back.”
“Okay, good.” Charlotte didn’t need to say ‘family only’, it was implied, “All your vitals look good, I’m gonna send the doctor in to talk to you in a few, okay? Holler if you need anything.”
Chrissy nodded, letting out a sigh as the nurse left.
“Cousin?” Robin asked, raising an eyebrow and snorting.
“I don’t want them to kick you out,” Chrissy shrugged, “Did you actually talk to my mom?”
“Barely,” Robin scoffed, “I came in here with Mrs. Henderson to check on you and she was here, I sat out in the hall in case you woke up, though.”
“Of course,” Robin squeezed Chrissy’s hand, “I’m glad you’re awake.
After a while, Robin left to check in on the others that were confined to hospital beds and It wasn’t long before anxiety began to creep into Chrissy’s head. Her sudden lack of music was beginning to dawn on her, the chorus of beeping and chatter not enough to drown out the fear she had been living with the past week. Vecna was gone. Steve and Nancy and Robin melted his ass, he had to be gone. The quiet still unnerved Chrissy, though, and she was having a hard time keeping herself calm. She pressed her head back into her pillow, squeezing her eyes shut and digging her nails into her palm as she tried to steady herself.
“When I was young. it came to me…” She whispered to herself, the words carrying the slightest lilt as she tried to sing the words without hearing the music, “and I could see the sun breakin'…”
Chrissy stayed like this for a while, pressing herself into her bed and poorly singing the lyrics of the song that had kept her alive. When she’d forget the words, she’d hum the tune until she could pick up the lyrics again, voice shaking. She understood she probably looked on the verge of insanity but wasn’t able to care. She wished Robin would come back or maybe Steve, hell even Nurse Charlotte would be more of a comfort than the suffocating emptiness of her curtained-off room. She had gone through the Queen song at least four times when the curtain slid open, rings scraping roughly against the bars.
“Chrissy?” Her mother’s voice asked, “What are you doing?”
However much anxiety Chrissy had swept away by humming was now doubled by her mother’s loud entrance. Chrissy forced her eyes open slowly, making eye contact with her mother just inside the ‘room’. She was wearing fresh makeup. Chrissy was in a hospital bed, with two bullet wounds through her torso after being deemed missing for almost a whole week, and her mother took the time to put on blush and mascara.
“Go away,” Chrissy said, immediately regretting the words.
“Excuse me?” Her mother balked, unable to conjure any more words.
“I’m sorry…” Chrissy apologized weakly, “I’m just tired…I’m sorry.”
“Yeah, well, I’m tired too Chrissy.” Her mother crossed her arms, standing at the foot of the hospital bed, “You cannot imagine the week I have had.”
Chrissy wanted to scream, throw something, do anything, but she didn’t have the energy. Instead, she laid the arm that wasn’t pinned down by an IV drip over her eyes, blocking all light.
“I’m sorry.” Was all she could manage.
“Chrissy, where have you been?” She felt the bed dip as her mother sat on the edge, there was concern in her voice, but Chrissy was all too able to pick out the petty anger that lay beneath, “Your father and I have been worried sick. We thought you were dead, Chrissy. Do you understand?”
“Where’s dad?” She wished he was here instead. He’d have just held her and told her it was going to be okay. He wouldn’t be questioning her, not yet.
“He left to pick up Ryan yesterday afternoon,” Her mother explained.
“Does Ryan know?” She missed her little brother, she hoped he had gotten to enjoy camp.
“No, we were going to tell him today when he got home,” Her mother sighed, without looking Chrissy could easily picture the way she was smoothing out the wrinkles between her eyebrows, “Chrissy please tell me what’s going on. We need to talk to the cops and get this all sorted.”
“I’m not talking to cops,” Chrissy said, she didn’t know what to say to them, nothing that they would believe, surely.
“Chrissy, you were kidnapped?” Her mother stressed, “People died, Anne Carver died.”
“I wasn’t kidnapped,” Chrissy let her arm fall away from her face, fisting her hand in the blankets at her side, “I was with friends.”
“Eddie Munson? You were with Eddie Munson, Chrissy.” Her mother stared her down, “He killed your boyfriend's sister and at least 2 others that we know about, and you’re calling him a friend?”
Chrissy wished she had the strength and will to be violent right now. She wanted to punch her mother's teeth out, instead, she tried to be calm, “Ex-boyfriend.”
“What?”
“Mom, he shot me. Jason shot me. He’s the reason I’m in here.” Chrissy explained desperately, she could hear the beeping of her heart rate monitor picking up, “He’s my ex-boyfriend… and Eddie didn’t kill anyone. Jason was the one trying to kill him. I- I don’t know what people have been saying, but he didn’t do anything wrong!”
“Oh my god, Chrissy! What are you saying?” Her mother stood up, staring at Chrissy like she was going crazy.
“Eddie is innocent, he’s a good person.” Chrissy was beginning to cry through her words, hands shaking, “He helped me! He’s why I’m alive, he’s why we’re all alive.”
Whatever her mother said next, she couldn’t hear over her own sobbing. Eddie had saved her, he saved everyone, and he was in the hospital for it. She sobbed into her hands, sides burning where the motion stretched her wounds. A pair of hands on her arms made her jump, but it was just Charlotte.
“Hey, Chrissy? I need you to breathe for me, okay sweetheart?” Charlotte said, looking in Chrissy’s face with genuine concern, “You have to calm down or you’re gonna hurt yourself. Can you just take a deep breath with me?”
Chrissy watched as Charlotte demonstrated breathing in deep and slow, repeating the action until Chrissy joined in, “Can you make her leave?” Chrissy whispered, so only the nurse would hear.
She nodded, and then turned to Chrissy’s mom, “Ma’am, I think it’d be best to give Chrissy some space, right now.”
“This is ridiculous,” She huffed, resisting as Charlotte tried to usher her out of the room, “That boy should be in prison right now! She has Stockholm syndrome or something! Absolutely absurd!”
The presence of another nurse and a doctor was enough to get Chrissy’s mom out of her room. Chrissy could hear them chattering at her, trying to get her to be reasonable.
“Hey Chrissy,” The doctor who had helped Charlotte get Chrissy’s mom out of the room picked up her chart, eyeing Chrissy as she began to calm down, “I’m Dr. Parsons, I’ve been looking after you since you got here. Are you feeling okay? It’s time for your meds, but do you need a minute?”
Chrissy tried to even herself out. She wasn’t feeling calm, but the pain in her side and hip was becoming too much, “I’m… I’m fine. Just hurts.” She scoffed, trying to play off the pain.
“Yeah, I bet it does,” Dr. Parsons laughed softly, matching her attitude, “We’ll get that morphine drip going, it’ll help, I promise.”
Chrissy nodded as Charlotte began preparing the medications next to her. The steady movement of the nurses' hands helped Chrissy focus on anything but her own state of mind.
“Sorry it took me a minute to get around to talking to you,” Dr. Parsons said, sitting on a rolling stool next to Chrissy. He smiled at her apologetically, “It’s been kind of a hectic night here.”
“It’s okay,” Chrissy’s voice was weak from crying, “I didn’t wake up that long ago.”
“Well, I hope it was a good sleep, you certainly needed it.” He held a hand up to Charlotte, silently asking her to wait a moment before hanging the morphine bag, “Do you remember what happened, Chrissy?”
“Jason shot me… twice,” Chrissy said bitterly. She had been raised to be a good Christian girl, but she didn’t think this was another mistake of Jason's she could forgive for the sake of their perceived happiness.
“I’m sorry you had to go through that, but It’s good that you remember. Are you feeling okay if I explain how your body is healing?” He asked genuinely, Chrissy nodded confident that he’d stop talking and leave her alone if she got overwhelmed, “There were two bullet wounds, one was through and through near the side of your waist, and the other caught the top of your hip bone…”
Chrissy listened as he explained the injuries and how they were repaired in layman’s terms. It could have been worse, was what she gathered, and she was lucky to be alive.
“Do you have it?” She asked, interrupting him as he explained she could be discharged within the next day or two.
“Excuse me?” He set the chart down, tilting his head at her, “Have what?”
“The bullet? Do you still have it?” He had told her that most of the bullet was intact, some tiny parts had shattered off and were floating around inside her body, but they wouldn’t cause any problems.
“Um, yes, actually.” He nodded, “We hold projectiles from cases like this as evidence for the police, you have to sign off on it before we give it to them, though.”
“Can I have it?” Chrissy asked, feeling childish, “After the cops look at it, I mean? Can I take it?”
“Sure,” He laughed, “I’ll have Charlotte make a note of it when she brings you the papers to sign.”
“Thank you,” Chrissy nodded, then yawned.
“Alright, I think you should get some sleep.” Dr. Parsons stood, “Do you want me to fill your mother in? Or would you like to talk to her when you wake up?”
“You can tell her,” Chrissy said, “And can you tell her I’m sorry, too.”
“Sure thing, Chrissy,” He nodded, “Ready for that morphine now?”
Chrissy just nodded, watching as the doctor left and the warm drugs flooded her veins. She quickly drifted off, welcoming the drug-induced sleep.
*
Steve found himself once again sitting in the spare chair in Eddie’s room with Officer Callahan lingering just outside the window facing the hallway. Water from his hair dripped onto his fresh shirt, and he held Eddie’s neatly folded vest in his lap. It wasn’t too badly ruined, but it would need a good wash to get the Upside Down out of it, and Steve didn’t know if the blood would come out. Eddie would probably just think it was metal anyway.
Wayne came back inside with a cup of coffee in hand and pointedly shut the door in Callahan’s face when he tried to get a look at Eddie.
“You’re back,” he said, sitting back down.
“Didn’t really go anywhere,” Steve laughed at himself, “and, unless you kick me out, probably won’t until he wakes up.”
Wayne settled back into his seat, and took a sip of his assumably shitty coffee before asking,
“You said you’re a friend of Eddie’s?”
“Yessir,” Steve responded, unable to get a read on Wayne's calm but calculating demeanor.
“Cut that out,” he waved, “Wayne’s fine.”
Steve nodded, unsure of what else to say. He fiddled with the vest in his hands, twisting the buttons and running his fingers over the texture of the patches; it looked like Eddie had attached himself.
Wayne didn’t mind the silence. He reveled in it in fact, and despite the way it made Steve squirm in his seat desperate for some small talk, he was relieved that the older didn’t seem concerned with scrutinizing his presence anymore.
Eddie shook his head, as if trying to look around but couldn’t due to the fact his eyes were closed.
“Wa- Wayne?” he asked blearily. Eddie’s voice was raw and he was struggling to get his eyes to open, but Steve and Wayne both looked at him like he was the sun returning after a long hard winter.
“Eds,” Wayne responded, grabbing the boy's hands once more. “I’m here, how do you feel?”
“Tired. How do you expect me to feel?” Eddie slurred and tried to wipe at his eyes but was confused to find a heart monitor clipped to his finger. Steve stood, but couldn’t bring himself to insert himself into the scene before him as Wayne started to tear up and carefully pulled a still heavily medicated Eddie into his arms.
“I’ll uh, go check on Chrissy,” Steve excused himself, thinking he made it out completely unnoticed.
“Steve?” Eddie asked as Wayne pulled out of their hug, and sat back in his chair, pulling it as close as he could to the bed. He tried to look around the room and place the voice, but only caught him rushing past the window.
“Odd kid,” Wayne shook his head, “he’s been hanging around this whole time, says he’s your friend.”
“Steve?” Eddie repeated, “Yeah, we're friends.”
“And that’s about all he said… What the hell happened, kid?” he asked sympathetically.
“Man,” Eddie sighed, letting his head fall heavily against the thin pillow shoved beneath it. “I have no goddamn idea.” As expected, his uncle didn’t accept that answer, but he allowed a moment for Eddie to collect his thoughts.
“Chrissy got…attacked and we ran, but he got Anne instead-”
“He? Who?” Wayne demanded, but Eddie flapped his hand lazily, brushing off the question.
“Eh, doesn’t really matter,” he said, before continuing his half-truth tale, “Steve was there too, and helped us out. Then the rest of the kids got involved-”
“Kids!?”
“Would you stop interrupting, old man?” He laughed but quickly stopped when he felt the strange tight sensation it triggered in his abdomen. With an apologetic nod, his uncle gestured for him to continue.
“Anyway,” he restarted, “a lot of stuff happened in the middle that I can’t really explain. Other people died, and then in our plan to stop the- well I guess he’s kinda a mass murderer,” Eddie decided, then laughed at the thought of Vecna actually being some guy running around the woods stabbing teenagers. Shaking off the image he got himself back on track, “In order to take him down, I was sort of a distraction but then I got attacked by…well…”
“Bats,” Wayne filled in, then at Eddie’s suppressed look continued, “that’s what Steve told the paramedics and the doctor- not that they believed it, but that’s all they had to go off.”
“No, yeah, bats is right,” Eddie confirmed, slipping back into his usual attitude of biting humor even as he tried to stop the onslaught of memories flooding his mind. The swarm. Their claws. Their taunting attacks.
“That sounds like a lot of hooey to me,” Wayne let him know, “but, well, I’m just glad you're alright.”
“Me too, Wayne, me too,” He sighed, turning to look at him and squeeze weakly at their joined hands. Eddie’s whole body felt liquid and tired, and he felt exposed laid out on the bed with only the thin sheets and paper hospital gown covering him.
Wayne gave him a watery smile before turning away to swipe at his eyes. Both of them acted like he wasn’t crying, and Wayne searched for anything uplifting to offer the boy. He didn’t want to bring up the recovery plan the doctor had gone through with him that morning, or the police officer probably still just outside the door.
“Steve left this,” He came up with, grabbing the familiar bundle of fabric neatly folded under the chair Steve had vacated.
“My battle jacket!” He exclaimed, trying to hold it up to unfurl it, but his arms weren’t cooperating and he accidentally yanked on the tube wrapped around his head and feeding oxygen into his nose. He swore under his breath, but Wayne just scoffed at him and held it up for him to see.
“Shit, I didn't think that thing was going to make it,” Eddie told him honestly and moved to reach out and run a finger over the pins, still miraculously in place, they heard arguing outside.
*
Chrissy did her best to look normal as she walked through the hospital, following Steve and Robin from a short distance. She wasn’t supposed to be up and if she got caught she’d be forced back to her curtained room. Steve had helped her disconnect the IV from her hand as they made a plan. Steve was going to distract the cop waiting outside the door, hoping he didn’t know Eddie was up yet, and Chrissy was going to slip in. She shimmied on a pair of sweatpants her mother had bought for her in a bag of other clothes and the three of them slipped into the hall. Robin and Steve going first, then Chrissy.
When they made it to the hall where Eddie’s room was, Chrissy watched from around the corner as Robin and Steve approached the officer outside. He was standing guard by the door, upright and trying to look serious, but he was clearly exhausted and bored. Stopping Chrissy from sneaking into Eddie’s room would've been the highlight of his day, she was sure of it. When Robin and Steve reached him, they were dramatic. They blustered up a lie, waving him along and insisting he follow them for whatever reason. He was hesitant to leave his post, but Steve and Robin’s false urgency was enough to get him to go. When the door was clear, Chrissy made a run for it. As quietly and as quickly as she was able, she slipped into the room, gently latching the door behind her.
She nearly fainted in relief when she turned to see Eddie in a hospital bed, staring at her with wide eyes. He was pale with dark circles under his eyes and his hair was frizzy and he looked unwell, but he was alive.
“Chrissy?” He asked, wincing as he sat straighter in the bed. He rubbed at his eyes like she was a mirage that would disappear.
“Eddie!” Chrissy breathed out, tears springing to her eyes as she took a few large steps to close the distance between them, “Oh my god, Eddie.”
As soon as she was next to him he reached out, pulling her down. Chrissy registered that Eddie wasn’t alone in his room, but she couldn’t bother to care. Fear, relief, and love gave her tunnel vision as she let him pull her in. She kneeled on the edge of his bed with one knee, falling into him. Without seeing, she could tell he was badly injured and did her best to keep her weight off of his body. Eddie’s arms looped around her shoulders, holding her tight to him.
“I’m so sorry,” She said, shaking her head. Her nose was pressed to the skin of his neck, he smelled like dirt and blood and betadine, but the scent of cigarettes and Steve’s soap was under there faintly. Assuring Chrissy that he was still Eddie. She couldn’t help the sob that escaped her as she apologized, “I’m sorry. I’m so so sorry.”
“Hey,” He hushed her, pulling her away from his neck to look in her face. His eyes were huge and dark, intense against the pale background of his skin, “Stop, it’s fine. We’re fine.”
“No, we should have left like you said,” Eddie wiped the tears away from Chrissy’s face as she spoke, “You wouldn’t be here if we had just left.”
“Chris, nobody would be alive if we had left,” He said sadly and pressed a kiss to her lips, he could taste the salt from her tears, “It’s fine. I’ll be fine.”
He pulled her down again, ignoring the pain in his body as he squeezed her. It wasn’t until she winced that Eddie realized she was also wearing a hospital gown over the top half of her body.
“What the fuck is going on?” A voice shrieked from the doorway, making Chrissy flinch as she pulled away from Eddie.
A blonde woman Eddie was easily able to recognize as Chrissy’s mother was standing just inside his room, rage fuming off of her. Only a moment later, a police officer entered, Steve and Robin right on his heels trying to talk to him.
“Oh my god,” The officer pulled at his hair, shaking his head at the scene before him. He grabbed his walkie from his belt and spoke into it quickly.
“Christine, what are you doing?” Chrissy’s mother snapped, she was glaring daggers at Eddie.
“You can’t be in here,” The officer pointed at Chrissy, approaching her as she stood up. “Edward Munson is a suspect in an active murder investigation. You cannot be here.”
The officer pulled handcuffs off of his belt and began to approach Eddie.
“No!” Chrissy stepped between the officer and Eddie, “No fucking way, you are not handcuffing him.”
“Christine, please,” The officer said, hands on his hips, “If you don’t move out of the way I’ll have to arrest you, too, for impeding investigation.”
“Impeding investigation?” Chrissy scoffed, “He didn’t fucking do anything.”
Chrissy mom was next to her in an instant, grabbing her arm and trying to yank her away. Eddie wasn’t sure what to do. He couldn’t get up to help and if he said the wrong thing he was fucked. He felt helpless as he watched his friends defend him. Chrissy pulled her arm back from her mom, brushing her off. The officer tried to step in, grabbing Chrissy’s arm and pulling her away.
“Hey, get the fuck off of her!” Eddie shouted, sitting up as Chrissy yanked free and stumbled back with a yelp. Steve was there in an instant, grabbing Chrissy as she winced and curled in on herself.
Everyone was arguing. Steve was shouting at the police officer. Wayne was trying to get anyone to listen to him. Robin was standing behind Steve with wide eyes and hands up in panic as her friend argued. Chrissy’s mom was yelling at everyone and Eddie was trying to get Chrissy’s attention as blood blossomed at her side, soaking into the hospital gown. It was chaos.
“Hey!” The chief was here, shouting for his place in the room, “Everyone shut up!”
It was enough to get everyone to turn silent, anger still simmering among them. Chief Powell shook his head, throwing his hands up as he looked at the Officer who let things get out of control. Eddie reached out, grabbing Chrissy’s hand. When she looked down at him he shook his head at her in question, eyes wide and mouth open.
“I’m fine,” She whispered to him, but her face was going pale already and her breathing was getting shallow. A nurse came in, pushing through everyone to get to Chrissy.
“I’m sorry,” Chrissy said weakly to the nurse, refusing to move her feet as the nurse tried to lead her away.
“Chrissy, you ripped your stitches,” She reprimanded gently, trying to get Chrissy to walk away with her, “You shouldn’t even be out of bed.”
“No, I-” She looked between the officers and Eddie with panicked eyes, “He didn’t do anything! Please, he didn’t do anything.”
The nurse sighed, turning to Robin for help. She just shook her head, too nervous to do anything.
“Okay, here’s what’s gonna happen,” The nurse said, looking up at the officer, “You are going to put those cuffs away this instant. Edward Munson is under our care, and I’m sorry Chief Powell, but that means you have no jurisdiction over him right now. He has treatment to go through. When that is over, or if he is ready to talk to you before that, then you can come in here and take up space. But before then, I’m going to need everyone to leave.”
The nurse looked at Chrissy, “And I’m sorry honey, but that means you too.”
“Hey, Chris?” Eddie said, getting her attention with the squeeze of her hand, “Go get stitched back up, I’ll be fine okay? Steve’s here, I’ll be okay, I promise.”
With an anxious sigh, Chrissy nodded and, begrudgingly, dropped his hand as she let the nurse lead her out. Chrissy stared at the ground, letting tears fall as the pain of her torn open wounds set in. Everyone silently and awkwardly shuffled out of the room.
“Wait, Steve?” Eddie called before he could slip out the door, “Stay? Please.”
Steve hesitated for a moment before nodding to Robin that it was okay. He was okay. Steve left the door open as a nurse slipped in behind him to check on Eddie. With the nurse here, and Robin keeping an eye on Chrissy, Steve let himself relax for a moment. He collapsed into a chair by the window and just watched as the nurses spoke to Eddie and Wayne. Despite the drips of Chrissy’s blood on the floor and the stressed creases on Wayne’s forehead and Steve’s own inappropriately timed crisis, everyone was fine. Right now, everyone was breathing and alive. They weren’t doing great, but they were going to live. There was nothing more Steve could do, so he didn’t try. He just sat in the uncomfortable chair and kept an eye on Eddie.
Steve wasn’t happy with the way Munson was treating one of his kids. So unhappy in fact, that he forces himself into their club leader’s van to see what he’s getting up to with Chrissy Cunningham, and maybe it’s a good thing he’s so paranoid because it might just save her life.
Or, the one where Chrissy doesn’t die in the Munson trailer, and, despite the world-ending, the king(former) and queen(current) of Hawkins High cannot take their eyes off Eddie Munson
Read on AO3 (content warnings in notes on A03)
“Okay. I wanna run through it one more time,” Nancy said coolly, even as she paced down the center aisle of the RV. No one argued; they all looked to Nancy as their leader. For what petty qualms Steve might have with her, he was glad that she was here to deal with this. He could handle the kids any day, go along with their crazy plans, but Nancy could keep a level head and make sure those plans didn’t go completely haywire.
He’d seen her like this before, but it had always been amongst chaos- the Demogorgon bursting out of the Byers’ walls, pulling up to the lab, the Mindflayer descending on Starcourt. Evil had always come to them, not the other way around, so for the first time, he was seeing that stone-cold killing mood in a moment of meditation.
“Phase One,” she drilled them.
“We meet Erica at the playground,” Robin filled in, “She'll signal Max, Lucas, and Chrissy when we're ready.”
Nancy nodded, “Phase two.”
“Chrissy baits Vecna,” Steve spoke up watching Eddie as he tried and failed to hide a cringe, “He'll go after her, which will put him in his trance.” They all hated the idea, more so than sending the rest of them into the Upside Down, where they could at least feel prepared. They had weapons, and clothes layered on like armory- hell, Dustin was wearing a ghillie suit for some reason- but Chrissy and Max were being sent in on the prayer that they had a happy memory to save them.
“Phase three?” Nancy pushed on.
“Me and Eddie draw the bats away,” Dustin said grinning up at Eddie, who did his best to return it, but his smile was strained and tight. He ruffled the kids' hair, which seemed to be convincing enough. Steve didn’t like that Dustin was going into the Upside Down at all, especially when their sole purpose was to bring the bat to them, but he had resolved himself to trust Eddie.
“Four.”
“The girls swap out,” Steve answered again, thinking of the way Max had floated in the graveyard. She had been shaking and terrified when she landed in Lucas’s arms and they were sending her back. “That’ll buy us some time, but we still need to move fast.”
“Five,” Nancy said with a set finality.
“We head into Vecna's newly bat-free lair, and…” Robin shook one of their Molotov cocktails, “flambé.”
“Nobody moves on to the next phase until we've all copied.” Nancy reminded, though it sounded a bit like a threat. “Nobody deviates from the plan, no matter what. Got it?”
“Got it,” they all chorused back to her.
Then they were moving. The RV was parked behind Eddie’s trailer but there wasn't much cover, and the gate was only hidden from view by the flimsy hazmat tent. The whole scene reminded Steve of the claustrophobic quarantining of the boy's house in ET. El was their alien, he supposed. He hoped she was alright, far away from the government assholes who had raised her. Having seen some of Henry’s memories, he knew now it was worse than what any of them had been able to imagine with El’s little description.
Moving quickly, and as quietly as they could with backs loaded full of gear, they crept their way into the tent they had left open the day before. Eddie zipped them back in, and they all turned to the gate.
Steve stepped forward, no one doubting that he would be the first one to go through.
“Be careful,” Dustin said, grabbing his arm for just a second. They weren’t really ones to acknowledge exactly how scared they were. Henderson didn’t want to put up with Steve’s worrying, and he wasn’t about to spill his guts to the kid.
“Thanks, buddy,” Steve said genuinely, trying to stay focused, reminding himself that Eddie had it handled. Same as the last time he went through, Steve sat on the edge of the gate, legs dangling through. He took a deep breath and sighed,
“Here goes nothing,” Before leaning furrowed, shifting his weight, and letting the strange pull of two gravities move him to the other side where he easily pushed to his feet. Robin handed his gear through, followed soon after by Nancy and her things.
Eddie haphazardly tossed his pack and shield through. Barely giving Steve enough time to move them out of the way, he fell through head first. He managed to roll smoothing through on the other side, only to land flat on his back. Steve offered him a hand up, which he accepted with a wild grin. Hands clasped, Steve pulled him to hit feet bringing their faces only inches apart, that crazed grin only inches from Steve’s own mouth. He did his best not to look down at his lips, but that meant the only other option was staring into his eyes. There was fear behind it, but in that moment Eddie was ecstatic, he knew that they were going to save the world.
Seeing it there in his eyes, Steve believed it too.
Robin's things popped up through the gate, catching Steve in the shins. He stepped back, cursing under his breath as whatever moment they’d been having quickly dissolved.
Instead of rolling back through like had worked easily before, Robin dove down meaning she threw herself at Steve. Unprepared to catch her, he stumbled back a few steps but managed to keep them both upright when Eddie reached out to catch Steve by the waist. For only a second, he was fully pressed against Eddie. Layers of jackets and vests were between them and yet Steve wanted to sink into it as he tried to cling to any feeling other than fear. Too soon, Eddie stepped back, his hands slipping away from Steve as he got his feet under him.
Robin giggled as Steve steadied her, and he couldn’t help but smile and roll his eyes. If this was the end, if it all went wrong, he was glad Robin was here with him.
Eddie pulled Dustin’s shield and Spear, matching his own, up, and then all four of them helped to pull Dustin through. None of them trusted the boy to be coordinated enough to do it on his own given the stupid amount of tactical gear he had piled on his body.
Not wanting to waste time, Nancy and Robin started to peel, Steve close on their heels, but unable to leave Dustin and Eddie without saying anything.
“Hey, guys, listen,” he started looking between both of them. “If things here start to go south, I mean, at all, you abort. Okay? Draw the attention of the bats. Keep 'em busy for a minute or two.” He knew it was pointless to remind them at this point, but they were going to be all alone. Steve wouldn’t be able to help if they got into shit, so he needed to know they’d stay safe.
“We'll take care of Vecna,” He assured them, “Don't try to be cute or be a hero or something. Okay? You guys are just-”
“Decoys.” Dustin cut him off. “Don't worry. You can be the hero, Steve.”
“Absolutely. I mean, look at us,” Eddie said, looking at Dustin- so young and so eager to help. He smiled sadly, “We are not heroes.”
Steve knew that was a lie, but hoped it held true at least through this fight. He nodded and started to follow after the girls.
“Hey, Steve?” Eddie called again, causing him to spin on his heel and find Eddie once again in his space.
“Make him pay,” he instructed, coolly. Steve nodded and reached a hand up to clasp around Eddie’s neck. Vecna had tried to hurt their friends, and had killed innocent and scared kids, and he was not going to get away with it.
Their foreheads not quite touching, Steve met Eddie's eyes again. This time he wasn’t distracted by thoughts of his smile or kissing it away. All he could think about was making it back to Eddie and Dustin, seeing them all safe and happy again, and finding whatever life lay on the other side of that night.
“We will,” Steve promised.
They were well on their way into the words, walking mostly in silence, but Steve could feel Robin getting more and more nervous.
“Uh... I don't mean to freak anyone out,” she called when it finally boiled over. She sounded more than a little freaked out herself, “but I swear we've seen this tree before.” She gestured to one of the many identical trees in the forest. They were withering and covered in the Upside Down vines they were doing their best to avoid.
“That's impossible,” Nancy told her, not in the mood for Robin’s panicked rant they could sense was coming.
“That would suck, right?” Robin continued to ramble, “If Vecna destroyed the world because... 'cause we got lost in the woods?”
“We're not lost, Robin,” She tried to reassure again, but Robin was already running off ahead of them, stepping heavily- if selectively- through the roots and the web they made on the ground. ”Robin, hey! Watch out for the vines!” Nancy called out to her, “Hive mind. Remember?”
“Thank you!” She shouted behind her, no slowing down.
“Uh, Don't worry about her,” Steve said, sidling up to Nancy even as his eyes tracked Robin, not wanting her to get out of sight. “She's just stressed. You know, scared.”
“She's a super klutz?” Steve offered. He was pleased when he managed to get a chuckle out of Nancy and brought down her stoney exterior for a moment.
“She did tell me that it took her longer to walk than most babies, so…” Nancy teased back, and Steve realized he’d…missed this. He’d moved on from Nancy for…various reasons, but that didn’t negate the fact that she was really the first true friend he’d ever had. Tommy and Carol had always been around. They were from the same neighborhood and in the same circles long enough that they knew everything about one another, but none of them cared about each other like Steve had learned that friends do.
“I really shouldn't laugh,” Steve admitted, still watching Robin with fondness in his eyes, “When I was a baby, I actually crawled backwards.”
“Crawled backwards?” Nancy repeated.
“You know, I'd push with my hands like this,” He mimed out his hands pushing in front of him and imitating the beeping of a truck backing up. “Always in reverse, you know?” Nancy laughed at him, but it wasn’t cruel.
“That is, until I reversed my baby butt down a flight of stairs and thumped my head really good,” Steve laughed at his own misfortune, recalling the many many times his mother had told the story.
“Wow. That explains so much,” Nancy joked. It stung a little, but Steve knew she wasn’t trying to be mean.
Steve remembered what it was to be mean, purposely hurtful. It was all he’d known before he met Nancy and why he didn’t miss Tommy and Carol much anymore.
Maybe he had after Nancy left him, before he met Robin, but even then it wasn’t them he missed, it was just having friends. Tommy was an asshole, but he was still someone who would come over and have a beer with Steve, go for a swim or a drive. Carol was nice enough when she and Tommy weren’t fighting, but they usually were.
Nancy’s friendship, or their relationship he guessed, showed him that wasn’t all people could be to each other. She’d been curious about him, and found their differences interesting rather than off-putting. Some of that, he knew, was just Nancy’s need to have all the details in order to put together the whole picture, but for a while there he’d felt seen. Towards the end, he supposed was when he started to feel watched and observed.
“Yeah, I think it kinda does,” Steve agreed, taking a moment to think and focus on not tripping over the vines before continuing, “I think, like, right out of the gate, like, I'm super confident. But I'm also, like, an idiot.” Robin wouldn’t like him saying that about himself, but in this instance he felt it was true.
“Which is just... I mean, it's a brutal combination,” He tried to laugh, but the way he used to act still haunted him. “The good news is, I get a big enough thump on my head, I can change, you know? I can learn. I can… crawl forward.”
Nancy didn’t say anything and the crunching of their boots grew loud. Steve knew he should have just said it outright to begin with, but maybe he was picking up on dramatics from Dustin or Eddie because he’d thought it was clever.
“Listen,” He tried again, “I guess what I'm trying to say in a really stupid, roundabout way is...is thank you.”
“Thank me?” Nancy questioned.
“Yeah,” He affirmed. A lot of his growth he attributed to Robin, or Henderson even, but Nancy had been the first step out of his old ways.
“For...?” She led on.
“For giving my head the biggest thump of its life two years ago. I needed it,” He told her, honestly. A part of him knew she’d been a bit too harsh with their breakup, but neither of them had done well to begin with; it was forgivable.
“It's changed my life.” He told her, even though Nancy had gone uncomfortably quiet again. “And now I'm crawling forward. Slowly.”
“Steve…” Nancy said gentry, but warningly as they both came to a stop.
“I’m not-” He stopped her before she could say anything. “This isn’t me trying to get back with you. I like Johnathan, really. I wouldn’t do that to you.” Nancy looked up at him, confused.
“I have this dream,” he started talking, not entirely sure where he was going. “About a family and-”
“The six little nuggets?” Nancy laughed, and informed him “We all heard.”
“Oh god,” He groaned, the kids were never going to let him live that down, “Anyway, it was all true. Every last word, and I, and you can correct me, but I don’t think that's what you want.”
“No,” Nancy breathed, “It never was.”
Something shattered between them, and Steve felt like he could breathe again.
They’d made sense in high school, and they’d made sense when they were the only ones who could understand each other, but somewhere along the way they’d lost that. Nancy had stopped seeing him, so he’d gone back to hiding away under that cool charisma he knew best, and slowly but surely she pushed out into the cold on her own. The cold where Johnathan had been awaiting.
“I’m sorry if I made it seem like I didn’t want you around,” Steve apologized, “or like we had to be dating for me to care about you because that’s not true.”
“So you’re saying…”
“I want us to be friends!” Steve admitted, frustrated by how simple it was and how long they’d been struggling with it. “And I don’t mean in the douchey way like I’ll wave to you at parties and see you whenever the world is ending…I mean like I trust you.”
Nancy’s eyes widened at that and Steve didn’t understand why. She was the most trustworthy person he knew. Always sure to listen, and deliberate all the facts. When they were together, he trusted her more than he’d trusted himself sometimes- which might have been a problem, but not for now.
“And I could do with more people I trust,” Steve ended, feeling a little out of breath as he waited for Nancy to collect her thoughts.
“I’m sorry too,” She finally said, “for never reaching out, only showing up at the end of the world.” She gestured to the hellscape surrounding them. “And I think we could all do with some friends if we survive this.” Steve opened his mouth to correct her, when, when they all made it out of this , but at that moment Robin came crashing back through the trees, somehow managing not to alert Vecna.
“Hey, guys! You guys! Awesome news!” she came to a stop in front of them, panting as she tried to catch her breath, “Looks like we weren't going the wrong way after all.”
“Speaking of friends,” Steve muttered to Nancy, earning a small smile. Robin rolled her eyes,
“Come on. Let's go!” and shot off back into the woods, forcing the others to chase after her.
Steve didn’t know why he loved her so much if this was how she acted in life or death situations, or maybe that’s why he loved her so much.
*
Chrissy had never been inside the Creel House; up until recently, nobody had. Even just the sight of the house sparked enough anxiety in her to make her shake. She never thought she would set foot inside. The closest she had ever been was in 3rd grade.
Her older cousins, who must have been in middle school at the time, brought her to the playground across from the house. They dragged her closer to the house, wrestling her to the front steps as they told her the story of Victor Creel. They had shoved her down onto the porch, laughing as they ran away. Chrissy ended up fracturing her wrist when she fell and sobbed as she ran back across the street, hiding in the metal play structure until night fell. Eventually, her dad found her, whisking her away to the hospital and away from that awful place. She rarely saw her cousins after that and avoided the whole street as much as she could.
Yet, here she was, walking around the old house in her socks with a bug lantern in her hand searching for an interdimensional demon. Phantom pains in her wrist reminded her of the horrible incident. Part of her wished she had been back in 3rd grade, feeling the pain and fear and loneliness of a broken wrist in the playground instead of the dread that settled over her now. That wasn’t an option, though, and she had chosen to do this. It was partially her idea, so it didn’t matter if she regretted it now, she was going to follow through. The fate of the world, weird as it sounded, was on her shoulders. Who would she be if she didn’t follow through?
She was grateful to not be alone, even if her only companions in this were really just kids. They were smart kids…brave kids. She couldn’t hear them over the song playing in her headphones, but she knew they were still in the house. Every so often she’d catch sight of a blue glow around the corner of a hallway as they all moved through the house, searching for Vecna.
Before Chrissy could get impatient, Erica caught up to her in the old kitchen of the house. She held up her notepad, the words ‘ Found Him ’ scrawled across the page. Chrissy nodded, taking a deep breath as she began following Erica through the house. They found Lucas and Max in the dining room, standing around Erica’s lantern. The blue glow surged brighter than the others, buzzing intensely
Chrissy stared at the light. He was right there, just on the other side of the dimensional veil. Chrissy begged to no one that he wasn’t able to catch on to the plan. The idea of him lying in wait for the others in the Upside Down made her sick. Erica held up her notepad again for the three of them to see.
‘ Phase One? ’
Chrissy waited with Lucas and Max in the front room of the house, after Erica had left to be the in-between signal. It was taking longer than expected, but Chrissy tried to assure herself everything was fine. If they followed the plan, everything would be fine. She told Eddie everything would be fine…
Thinking of him was stressing her out, but she couldn’t help it. She hadn’t expected being away from him to actually be this difficult. It shouldn’t be, she knew that. She had really known him less than a week at this point, but they were connected now. Whatever this weird shit they were going through was, it had permanently stapled them together. She had a hard time thinking about her future, about the details of where she ended up, but she knew it had to be with him. Adults would probably call her dramatic, childish even, but they couldn’t understand. The only ones who could were the people she was with now. This group- The Party, they called themselves- they were stapled together, too. There was no falling apart here.
Chrissy was seeing firsthand what happened when one of them broke away. She had heard, through the others, that Max had distanced herself from the rest of the group. She broke up with Lucas, stopped hanging out with them and fully secluded herself away, and this was where it got her. Her loneliness, her sadness, it invited Vecna in. It put her in danger. The group was going to be the thing that saved her, though. Chrissy could easily see the bonds starting to reconnect these past few days. Max seemed lighter, freer than she did when Chrissy met her at Steve’s house. Even now, in this horrible place, she was smiling with Lucas, talking to him through the notepads. They were very clearly in love. The idea of them made Chrissy think of Eddie again.
She wished he was here, but knew he couldn’t be. She was the one to tell him that. Saying goodbye - no, saying see you later - in the field had killed her. She wanted to take him up on his offer and run, but they both knew it wasn’t the right thing to do. She didn’t want to say goodbye to him, but he had kissed her as she was leaving the RV, without asking this time. It would have been incredibly romantic - him pulling her into his arms, lips crashing down on hers as their friends watched the display - but Chrissy couldn’t help feeling like it was an actual goodbye. The type you give someone when you really don’t think you’ll see them ever again. She couldn’t let that happen. Either she would see Eddie again, or she would die here. Her living without him wasn’t an option.
Before she could spiral completely in her thoughts, a narrow beam of light flashed through the front window, flickering on and off. It was the signal. Nancy, Steve, and Robin had reached the house and were communicating with Erica from the Upside Down. Chrissy looked to Max while Lucas went to the window, signaling back. It was time.
Chrissy, with her shoes on, and Max and Lucas flanking her, stood in front of the overpowered blue lantern. She hesitated, wanting to look to the younger girl beside her for reassurance, but decided against it. She didn’t want to give Max any reason to jump in too soon.
Five minutes. That’s what they had agreed on. Chrissy would go under for five minutes and then Max would take her place with a, hopefully, smooth transition. Chrissy readied herself, reminding herself what memories she’d hide in, before sliding the headphones down to her neck and turning off the Walkman. The sound of the lantern was almost overwhelming, drowning out even the chorus of spring crickets outside.
“Hey!” Chrissy shouted into the blue room, hoping the shake in her voice wasn’t noticeable, “I’m here… the music’s off, no more games.”
She waited a moment, the blue light unwavering.
“Can you hear me?” Chrissy asked, venom lacing her voice as she began to taunt the creature she couldn’t see, “Hello? What are you waiting for? Are you going to take me or what?”
Chrissy couldn’t look away as she shouted, the lantern in her hand beginning to shake. Before she could call out to him again, the intensity of the blue glow faded. She shot a confused glance over to Max, unsure of what to do. Then the lantern in her hand began to grow brighter.
He was moving. The group followed, Chrissy leading the way, moving that lantern to keep it glowing bright. They did their best to keep up with Vecna, following him all the way up to the attic. The movement stopped in the center of the room, at an odd-looking altar that Chrissy knew must have been Vecna’s when he was still Henry. The light died.
“What are you waiting for?” Chrissy asked, shifting uneasily, before raising her voice, “C’mon! I’m here! I’m right fucking here!”
“I know you can hear me… that you can read my thoughts,” She waited for a moment, waiting for him to enter her head, “Even the worst ones…”
Chrissy set the lantern down in front of her and sank to her knees, sitting back on her heels. She wished she was alone, grateful to have company, but uncomfortable speaking about this in front of her younger friends. She knew they weren’t going to look down on her, but that didn’t help. Pretending Max and Lucas weren’t there, she began speaking to Vecna, as honestly as she could.
“You were right about me,” She spoke quietly, knowing he could hear her, “I thought you were just... Trying to make me angry,” Her words felt childish, “But you were right, I am…not a good person. I did bad things, and I hated it.”
No response. She knew what Vecna wanted her to do.
“I acted like… I was a slut.” Chrissy flinched at her own words, never having said these thoughts out loud, “I was just… so mad at him, at Jason. We had only been together for a few months, I thought it was over. So…”
Chrissy stopped, taking a deep breath before forcing herself to continue, “I slept with someone else and I lied about it. When Jason apologized, begging to get back together, I should have told him. Jason never knew…I told him I… that I had never. But it wasn’t true and I hate myself for it.”
Chrissy swiped at the tears in her eyes, the shame of the memory choking her, “I tried so hard to forgive myself. For years I lied to myself until I couldn’t anymore. I’m nothing , I didn’t deserve Jason. I stopped trying at some point, I don’t deserve to be forgiven, and I… I hoped every day that something awful would happen. That everything would just end and I wouldn’t have to live like this anymore. I gave in to my mother’s words. I starved myself, hoping that it would kill me…
“So, that’s why I’m here,” Chrissy sniffed, tears falling as she spoke, “I want you to take me away…just make me disappear.”
“Did you really do that, Chrissy?” Max asked behind her suddenly, making Chrissy jump.
“What?” Chrissy asked, confused, “Why are you talking?”
“Good people don’t lie, Chrissy,” Max said, shaking her head as Chrissy stood up, “Good people don’t slut themselves out just because they're mad.”
“Max! What-” Chrissy took a few steps back, Max closing in on her, face twisted in disgust, Lucas just glared at her from behind his girlfriend.
“Your family should be ashamed of you,” Max continued to back Chrissy against the wall, “I thought you were a good person, Chrissy. I thought you were someone to look up to, but you’re not. You’re sick .”
*
"Chrissy's in," Robin reported, "Move on to Phase 3."
“Copy that,” Dustin replied through the walkie, “Initiating Phase 3.”
The line went dead, for a long moment and Nancy, Robin, and Steve watched the hoard of bats writhing on the roof. Then, far away, speakers crackled to life and as a sacrificial siren, Eddie began to play.
From the Creel house, his friends could barely hear the scratching of his guitar strings but knew the plan was working when the bats, en masse, left their post.
“Okay, it’s working,” Nancy said crawling out from their hiding place under the playground, “Let’s go.”
Moving as quietly as they could, the three carefully picked their way through the vines and towards the dilapidated house, and its familiar, unbroken, stained glass door.
*
Inside the Upside Down version of the Creel house, the floor was almost entirely covered by the strangely pulsating plants. It gave them pause, but, unwilling to waste what little time they had, Steve pushed on. Stepping lightly, he hopped from foot to foot as he scouted out the largest gaps between vines.
It was nerve-wracking and a little hilarious at the same time. Each of them could feel the weight of the world crashing down on their shoulder, as they followed the leader in a game of hopscotch. Two feet fit there, one far to the left, and quickly far to the right. Round and round the playground Steve would lead them until the recess bell rang, and it was time to return to reality.
With the girls following in Steve’s footsteps, they all made it to the first landing where there was a clearing in the vines, enough for them to all stand together.
Tauntingly the door to the attic sat ajar, held open as if in welcome or a dare, by the vines. Robin held the Molotov she’d made in hand, with Steve and Nancy pulling their weapons from where they’d been stored on their backs. Armed, and full of adrenaline they turned to face down the tight curling staircase, knowing their monster was waiting for them at the top.
Taking a final steadying breath, they moved for the open doorway, just as the world around them began to tremble.
*
“Max stop!” All thoughts of the plan had escaped Chrissy’s mind as she reeled from Max’s words.
“You shouldn’t have wasted time starving yourself,” Max snarled, “You should have just done it. Everyone would have been better off. Eddie would be better off ”
A different feeling settled over Chrissy, more than the hurt at her friend's words.
“I’m glad Vecna is going to take you,” Max nodded at her own words, eyes glazing over and voice distorting, “I’m glad it’s going to be you who breaks the world .”
This wasn’t Max. In a panicked moment of realization, Chrissy scrambled backward, nearly falling as her hands searched for something, anything, to grab onto behind her. The coolness of aluminum brushed against her fingers and she grabbed on, swinging an old lamp directly at Max. The bulb shattered as it crashed down against her face. Chrissy didn’t stick around to see him transform back into himself. She took the moment he was off guard to push past him, sprinting out of the attic and through the house.
*
In the void Chrissy was still sitting back on her heels, eyes rolled back as she panted fast and shaky breaths. Eleven crouched next to her, looking sadly at the older girl she had never met.
“It’s okay, Chrissy,” Eleven said even though she couldn’t hear her, “I’m coming. I’m going to help, just hold on a little longer.”
El took Chrissy’s hand, settling in next to her and closing her eyes. She began to search for Chrissy inside her head. Both her and Max had planned to attach themselves to a memory, trying to hide from Vecna there. El flipped through Chrissy’s mind. Like changing the channel on a TV, memories flashed around El. She saw Chrissy at different points in her life, with different people; Chrissy standing in a field with a long-haired boy El recognized but didn’t know, wrapped in his arms. Chrissy and Robin giggling on the floor of a living room. Chrissy at Steve's dining room table with the rest of El’s friends back in Hawkins. The familiar boy El didn’t know again, leaning down and smoking a cigarette out of Chrissy’s hand. Chrissy slow-dancing with a blonde boy on the front porch of her house, both dressed formally. Chrissy being lifted into the air by other cheerleaders, smiling while waving in the air. Chrissy throwing a pitch for a younger boy who had the same nose and eyes.
Finally El landed on something solid. She opened her eyes, suddenly surrounded by a bustling crowd of younger kids. It was a brightly lit hallway, and children of different ages were lined up along the walls. Some held instruments, others were dressed in costumes, one even had a black and white dog with her. El looked around, confused. She was still in Chrissy’s mind, so she must be here somewhere.
El walked through the hall, dodging kids who seemed to not notice she was there. El tried to get the attention of an adult to no avail. Eventually she spotted her near the end of the hallway. She was younger though, even younger than El had been when she had first met Mike and the others. She was mixed into a group of other girls the same age, all of them dressed in mini red and white cheer uniforms and holding fluffy white pom poms. A big red bow was placed proudly on top of her head.
Chrissy twisted her fingers nervously, peeking through the door as it opened and a group of girls with flutes came back into the hallway. The group in front of the tiny cheerleaders left through the door and they all erupted into excited and fearful squeals.
“We’re next!” One of them whisper-yelled, quickly, being shushed by the teacher standing at the door.
Chrissy seemed to be more and the fearful side. El watched her lean against the white cinderblock wall and begin to quietly panic. Her friends didn't seem to notice, and neither did the teacher. El approached, wanting to help calm the child down and forgetting she wasn't visible here. Before El could reach out, a boy stepped in front of Chrissy, hesitant. He was taller than her, looking to be at least a year older, with a buzzed haircut and a ratty t-shirt. A beat-up red guitar hung from his shoulders.
“Chrissy, right?” He asked anxiously, getting her attention.
She nodded up at him with wide eyes, “Yeah, you’re… Eddie…Munson?”
“That’s me,” He tossed her an easy smile, looking back to a group of boys El assumed were his bandmates, “I’m with my band.”
“That’s cool,” Chrissy nodded, not noticing the looks her friends were giving her.
“Uh… yeah, are you nervous?” He asked bluntly. Chrissy hesitated, cheeks turning red as she frowned down at the ground, “I’m just asking because, well, me too.” He admitted.
“Oh,” Chrissy said, seeming to relax at the idea that she wasn’t the only one suffering from stage fright.
“Yeah, but you shouldn’t be!” He offered, face turning red as he fumbled over his words, “You’re going to do your… cheer... thing great!”
“You think so?” Chrissy asked
“Yeah! Of course, everyone is going to love you.” Eddie encouraged, beaming down at her, “I promise.”
El recognized him now. He was the boy with long hair that Chrissy had been with in her newest memories, Eddie.
“Why’d you come over here to talk to me?” Chrissy asked, confused.
“ What’s happening? ” Mike’s voice asked in her head.
“I’m in a…memory,” She replied in the real world, “A Chrissy memory.”
She needed to find where Chrissy was hiding. El began looking around for something, anything, that would lead her in the right direction. El knew this was a sweet moment, but she was unsure why she was there.
“Well, I…” Eddie furrowed his eyebrows, “I don’t really know, but I wanted to tell you good luck…and I, uh, I like your outfits, you look really cool.”
“Thank you,” Chrissy blushed, looking down at the ground again.
“Yeah of course,” He didn’t know how to leave, didn’t want to leave.
“Good luck to you, too!” She said, smiling up at him, nervousness mostly gone. She nodded past Eddie to his bandmates who were staring wide-eyed, “And to your band, uh…”
“Corroded Coffin,” He filled in the name for her proudly.
“Corroded Coffin,” She nodded as the door swung open the last group coming back out, “Cool name.”
Her friends grabbed her, squealing as they rushed out the door. Chrissy smiled and waved to Eddie as she was whisked away. He gave her an encouraging thumbs up in response.
With Chrissy out of sight, El began to search harder. After a moment she caught sight of something entirely out of place. A run-down wooden picnic table was sitting in the middle of the hallway, back where El had originally come in. None of the children acknowledged it, but El knew that was what would help her find Chrissy.
*
Dustin reached the end of his countdown just as the bats cleared the edge of the forest around the trailer park. Atop the hellish version of his home, Eddie breathed heavily. The final notes of his solo performance trailed off, even as the gritty sound of the ramped up speakers continued.
A bat dived, swiping at Henderson who only barely managed to duck away from its claws. For fear of another attack, both the boys ran. Abandoning the Upside Down replica of his guitar Eddie jumped. First, down onto Wayne’s truck pulled up next to the trailer, then hit the ground hard. Not stopping to react to the impact vibrating through his knees, Eddie turned to help Dustin down.
Glancing behind them, Dustin saw the oncoming swarm of bats, like a dark cloud blocking out the red glow of the Upside Down sky. He watched, mouth agape, as they got closer and closer. Letting out a frustrated cry, Eddie grabbed him by the shaggy net of foliage and yanked him along to the gate.
They rolled back through, uncoordinated and frantic, as a single pile of limbs.
Laying on the cold blissfully green grass, the scent of wet earth filled Eddie’s nose. Unable to hold back the pounding fear, the thrill of the song, or the relief of being home they both tumbled into unbridled laughter.
“Most. Metal. Ever!” Dustin cheered as Eddie let out an excited shout, punching and kicking the air above them.
Once their celebration died down, Eddie remembered,
“Shit, man the gate,” and slapped Henderson's shoulder. The kid quickly rolled over onto his stomach to peer through the gate. They hadn’t known when planning if the creatures would try to follow them back through to the real world, but they didn’t seem concerned with the gate at all.
It was a bad angle, but not much could be seen through the flurry of leathery wings and terrifying screams anyway. The bats descended on the equipment still live on the roof of the trailer, and Eddie's imagination could fill in the destruction they wrought.
Some of them must have found the guitar and a horrific electronic squeal echoed through the gate as the instrument was shredded to bits.
Eddie winced, sad to think of even the evil version of his sweetheart meeting such an end, but it was worth it. Nancy, Robin, and Steve were safe.
*
Chrissy slammed herself against the front door, yanking it open in a hurry. Boards just like the ones she had seen in the horrific version of her own house were blocking her way. She threw her shoulder against them, begging to get through.
“Where are you going, Christine?” Vecna’s voice echoed behind her.
Chrissy turned to see Vecna rounding the corner at the top of the stairs, stalking after her. She bolted, sprinting through the house as she looked for a way out. The light fixtures and lamps were flashing wildly as she ran. Every door she tried was boarded shut with no way through. She hyperventilated as she yanked and pulled and beat on the wood, trying anything to get out as she felt Vecna’s presence grow closer.
She threw another door open, only to be met with another door instead of boards. It was the door of a bathroom stall, complete with rust and graffiti. As soon as it was open a violent banging began on the other side.
“Chrissy!” Her mother screamed, “Open this door right now!”
Chrissy stepped back, the familiar voice catching her off guard.
“Open this goddamn door, Chrissy, or I swear!” The voice screeched, the hinges and lock rattling with each bang, “I’ll fucking gut you, you stupid girl.”
Chrissy turned to run but was stopped by boards blocking the way she came from. Venca’s version of her mother’s voice continued to wail. She could see the hinges of the door begin to bend, creaking as they became weaker.
Chrissy closed her eyes, blocking out the sound as she pulled memories, the good ones, to the front of her mind. She saw flashes as she sifted through them, trying to find the right one. She saw her teammates after her first ever football game, Jason freshman year in a suit for homecoming, her little brother with a baseball trophy, and her new friends gathered around a campfire laughing
Eddie in the woods behind the school.
Him throwing himself off of the bench and crashing to the ground. His smile when she laughed at him. The way he hid behind his long hair, watching her with bright eyes. She let the feeling of being in his presence wash over her. Clinging to the memory of him in the forest with her for dear life. She could feel herself being closed in on, the vibration of her mother pounding on the door shook her down to the bone. With a final bang the door flew open. Chrissy could feel the rush of air on her face, but when she opened her eyes she was no longer in the Creel House.
*
Dustin and Eddie continued to watch the bats tear through the trailer, looking for them only to be met with layers of sheet metal. Watching their claws and beaks scratch at the wall of the trailer, carving into any surface they could get a hold of, Eddie paled and pulled Dustin a little farther away from the edge. He couldn’t imagine how Steve had lived through that, and had kept walking after they bit into his sides. Eddie had never been so grateful for being the distraction.
A few minutes passed and the flurry of the bats' descent died down as they came to the realization that there was no one there.
Either because they were bored with the lack of game to kill, or because Vecna was calling them back to him, Eddie didn’t know, but the bats were starting to leave. Just one lone flying hell beast to start, then others in small numbers following its lead. Most of the swarm still remained, and picked through the wreckage of the trailer, but a sinking feeling took over Eddie like the floor had opened up to swallow him.
The bats weren’t dead yet.
Vecna wasn’t dead yet.
Their friends were in trouble.
*
Chrissy waited impatiently in the clearing, checking her watch out of habit. Every time she did it showed a wildly different time, not giving her a clue as to how long she had been there. It felt well over five minutes, but she knew time didn’t work the same in here. Chrissy hoped Steve, Robin, and Nancy would kill Vecna before Max had to come in. The less danger the younger girl was in the better, Chrissy thought.
She was content with the location, though. It was exactly as it had been when Chrissy was here with Eddie. A gentle breeze brushed through the fresh spring leaves of the trees around her and she could hear the faint sound of birds and bugs. It was different, warped by memory, but still enough of a comfort.
Chrissy had resorted to pacing around the clearing and counting her steps when a loud crash stopped her dead in her tracks. She yanked her head up, looking around the woods. The sound had come from somewhere off to her left, but she couldn’t see where. Wide eyed she spun around the clearing, waiting for something else to happen. For a moment the clearing fell silent again.
Dead silent. The only sound ringing in Chrissy’s ears was her own panicked breathing. A beat of nothing and then the slow creaking and another crash, closer this time. Chrissy whipped around in time to see a heavy branch crashing to the earth. The trees continued to crash and fall around her, forcing her into the center, closer to the table. As Chrissy panicked, the sound began to distort. An odd buzzing mixed itself into the crashing and then the hum of a sweet voice. Music, Chrissy realized, music was begging to play inside her head. But it wasn’t her music. After a moment of trying to pick out the sound, Chrissy realized it was an old song, one she heard hundreds of times, but she couldn’t think of the name at the moment.
“ While I’m alone and as blue as can be,” The voice sang out, echoing around the clearing.
The clearing was beginning to rot and decay around Chrissy. The sky turned dark and the wind picked up, a storm threatening overhead. Chrissy watched in horror as red lightning flashed overhead, swiftly followed by the crash of thunder. Exactly how the sky looked in the Upside Down. Vecna was closing in.
She thought about running. There were no doors for him to block her in with. It was a straight shot to the school. She wondered if she could throw herself into a different memory if she made it there.
Resolving to at least try, Chrissy turned to run back towards the school. Only to be met with the stained glass front door of the Creel House.
“Oh fuck,” Chrissy said to herself. It was too late, he was here. She watched as the door began to slowly creak open in its frame, the house visible inside.
“You can’t hide from me, Chrissy.” Vecna’s voice taunted from no discernible direction.
She went back into her head, trying to pull up a different memory. Images of the field, Weathertop Eddie had called it, flashed through her mind. Eddie leaning against her knees while she talked to Dustin about Suzie. Walking with Max and talking about a girls day. Helping gather firewood with Erica and Lucas.
“You think I don’t see what you’re doing?” Vecna’s voice leached into her mind, “You think I don’t see everything ?”
The image in Chrissy’s mind wasn’t a memory anymore. She saw Jason, eyes bloodshot and face sallow, blue light reflecting off of him, and a shiny new revolver in his hand. Chrissy scrunched up her face in confusion as he cocked the hammer back, aiming it directly at Lucas, Max wide-eyed and shaking behind him.
“You thought you could trick me?”
Chrissy watched as Robin was slammed against the wall in what must have been the Upside Down version of the Creel House, vines wrapping around her as she cried out. She saw Dustin and Eddie screaming as they fought off the bats. The sound echoed in her mind.
“You thought your friends could stop me?”
A bloody star-shaped mouth opened up, screeching as it fed on a body. Chrissy didn’t recognize the creature, but she could tell it was a relative of the bats she had fought. She watched as it slammed through a heavy metal door, following an oddly familiar face down a dark hallway. She caught a glimpse of Nancy and Steve desperately hacking away at the vines holding Robin to the wall.
“I see them.”
Bat’s began to leave Eddie's barricaded trailer, uninterested in the decoy.
“I see your friends...”
Nancy was slammed down to the ground, a vine swiping her feet out from under her, her shotgun skittering across the floor. Steve was next to go, the thick vines wrapping around his already bruised throat, choking the life out of him.
“Just as clearly,”
She watched as Eddie steadied himself, turning with cold and determined eyes to Dustin and let his fist fly, connecting it hard with Dustin’s skull. The child dropped to the ground.
“As I…”
Eddie threw himself back through the gate, shouting and screaming as he jumped on a bike.
“See you.”
Chrissy watched in horror as he pedaled fast, the bats swarming after him.
“I can feel them.”
Robin gasped for air, the vines tightening around her. So were Steve and Robin, fighting back to no avail.
“I can feel them dying .”
In flashes, Chrissy could see each of their mouths, open and gasping for air, struggling against their environment like fish that have already been gutted.
She could feel their fear, the bright and painful regret as Steve looked to Robin, the strain of their hands as they reached for something, anything, anyone. Even as they struggled it was like they had already given up.
