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“Lying in my bed, I hear the clock tick and think of you. Caught up in circles, confusion is nothing new.” You pressed your head against the van’s ratty headrest and sang into the wind of the open window. Early spring brought sweet pollen in the air.
At the wheel, Eddie heaved a mock put-upon sigh. “This song sucks , man.”
You pointedly ignored him, head swaying to the music. “Flashback, warm nights. Almost left behind…” You looked over at him. Eyebrows waggling. “C’mon, Munson. Suitcase of memories, time after, sometimes—”
“...That was the most metal thing ever!” Dustin was screaming and grinning ear to ear, and you could barely hear the words over the roaring race of your own heart in your ears. You spat out pieces of upside-down flecks from your mouth.
The curly-haired kid and his mentor were jumping in tandem, delighted and crowing their victory. The pride was contagious. Adrenaline made your nerves fucking fizz : you found yourself smiling without even meaning to, camo vest tight around your chest as you gasped for breath.
Eddie glanced at you as he manically celebrated.
That broad grin made your heart skip a beat. Always did. Ever since freshman year.
“Did you see me? I was all like—” Eddie threw his bandana-clad head back and strummed at the unpowered chords on his warlock violently. “—MTV could fucking never , man, they could never pull off shit as cool as that, it was—”
The chaotic ambience of the upside-down outside the reinforced trailer surged: a cacophony of dissonant screams and whirling, windy shrieks. Dustin slapped at Eddie’s arm. The DM fell silent. All eyes went to the ceiling. Grips on weapons grew tighter.
“Something tells me we’re not out of the woods yet.” You said breathily.
And so you all stood, back to back to back, a triforce of protection. Trashcan lids up and spears at the ready, feeling jittery and wild-eyed in the eerie blue light. Even from the corner of your vision, you could see Eddie’s wild hair. The way his jaw was tight. The leather of his jacket sleeve brushed against yours: familiar and reassuring.
The buttery fabric was a sensation you were familiar with. He was your carpool, after all. Every day, like clockwork, since you had started Hawkins High. Just him and his van, giving a ride to the bookish nerd everyone else passed like they were invisible. You paid him, of course. But you suspected he enjoyed the company more than the money.
You bickered over song choices. Ate chips. Gossiped like a couple of housewives. And by the time you were a sophomore you were thick as goddamn thieves. Now, as seniors together? You were practically welded at the hip. Smoking at the quarry on weekends, taking road trips to Illinois to see live music. Just talking, sometimes.
He was a good friend. A best friend, maybe.
So when you bumped his elbow with yours, he glanced away from the ceiling and coal-brown eyes found yours. Eddie smiling weakly, reassuringly. You returned the gesture.
Here together , it read. Just like always .
“C’mon dipshits!” Dustin screeched when the noise started to fade. You and Eddie whirled around to face him with the same matching admonishments.
Plastic crunched. The vent fan in the far corner of the room buckled, warped.
“...They can’t get through that, right?” Dustin asked warily, speartip glinting.
A demobat head burst through, screaming bloody murder. And just like that, your adrenaline was back to full-throttle. You screamed on impulse. Eddie and Dustin followed suit, and then all three of you were blindly stab stab st ab bing at the new opening, feeling flesh tearing and snapping on the ends of your spears, but for every goddamn shit-sucking bat face you cleaved there were two more .
“Die, you bastards!” Dustin screamed hoarsely, voice breaking. Spittle flew from his mouth. You barely noticed, arms burning from exertion, desperately fighting off the flying menaces. There were so fucking many of them. They wouldn’t stop coming .
Eddie’s mane poofed as he looked wildly around, eyes landing on the discarded shield next to your feet. Over the nightmarish chorus of the demobats, he whistled and jerked his head at it. Without even stopping to question it, you complied: snatching it up, tossing it to him. Eddie leapt up onto a chair and slammed the nail-studded lid against the gap, sealing it. Demobats rattled against the metal interior.
All three of you were back to panting again.
“Have you ever considered specializing in roof repair, once you graduate?” You asked Eddie, wiping sweat from your brow.
There was that damnable smile again. Infectious. “Maybe I have a knack for it.” Even under the grime and grease and stress, his gaze twinkled.
“Hey, uh, guys. Are there any more vents like that?” Dustin asked warily.
You and Eddie glanced at one another. You’d spent enough time vegging out in Eddie’s room to know exactly what he was thinking. “ Shit .” You said at the same time. Then you were booking it, right behind Eddie’s lanky, jingly form, down the vine-smothered hallway. He ripped the door open just as bats poured in from the bedroom vent like living liquid. Dustin yelped. Eddie slammed the door shut.
“It’s not gonna hold!” The curly haired freshman screamed. The wood splintered.
“Go, go, go !” You barked out, grabbing at Dustin and Eddie’s jackets and hauling them back to the trailer living room.
Eddie’s hand moved to your forearm, gripping it tightly, pushing you and Dustin into the light of the rift. “C’mon man, let’s get the hell out of here!” He was hollering over the terrible scratch of hundreds of claws. He hung back, spear out, while you gave Dustin a knee-up through the rift, accepting his hand from the other side when you shimmined out, landing hard on your ass on the mattress. The air was blessedly breathable again.
You and Dustin looked up. “Eddie! Clock’s fucking ticking!”
Eddie had a hand on the rope. He wasn’t moving.
“Eddie. Eddie!” Dustin said. Now he was pausing too. You looked wildly between the two of them. What the hell was going on? “...No. No, no, no man, don’t —”
But Eddie was looking up at you , right in the fucking eyes, and swinging his spear across the rift. The rope fell in two clean pieces. No way for you two to get back… and no way for him to get out.
“I’ll buy you time!” The wild-maned metalhead barked, and before you could even process what had happened he was gone. You heard the eerie echoes of him banging his shield and screaming for the demobat’s attention filtering through the rift.
“You fucking bastard ! You asshole !” You spat vitriol at the rift: enough to make Dustin’s panic abate in sheer shock at the volume of profanity spewing from your normally polite mouth. You cast around helplessly: chair. Chair , god, chairs were your favorite thing right now. Chairs meant help . You threw one into place, putting a knee up on it. You extended a hand out to Dustin. “Jump backwards.”
“...What?!”
“When you get up on my knee, jump backwards . Or you’ll fall wrong.”
His mouth was an ‘o’ of shock, and fear, and pale-faced panic, but he didn’t contest. A clammy hand grabbed yours and your knee creaked when he put his weight on it, leaning and jumping through the rift— and falling horribly, horribly wrong.
There was an audible crack .
“Shit. Shit! Dustin!”
He was howling in pain over your words and you panicked, following him through, barely avoiding breaking your own leg in the process. Minutes ticked by when you, with shaking hands and a buzzing, overclocked brain, rolled his pant leg up and set his leg as best as you could with your weak-ass nursing knowledge and rolled-up elastic bandage.
The demobat screams were faint and the world was a fucking blur : fumbling for your spear, getting Dustin’s weight over your shoulder, limping out the door. Heart in your ears again. God, was that ever going to go away? Was this ever going to be over ?
A cloud of demobats whirled half a block away, like a sentient tornado. The sight sent a chill down your spine. Dustin tensed up under your arm. You both knew what it was.
Each footfall was terrible.
Each breath rasped.
And when you got there, the demobats were falling. Raining from the sky: christ only fucking knew why, who fucking cared, you didn’t, they could be exploding into pink fucking glitter for all it mattered because Eddie Munson was limp and bloody and lying right in the middle of all of them.
You let go of Dustin. Feet moving. Heart roaring. Louder, now.
He looked so much worse up close.
You got Eddie’s head in your lap. “God, Eddie, Eddie, I— god , Eddie.” You babbled. He was red. He was so, so red, soaking into his clothes and on the slimy ground and smeared across his face and—and—
Once upon a time, your grandfather had told you war stories of what he’d survived, over Thanksgiving dinner. They’d scarred you for life. Especially the ones about the death rattles of men he knew, men he cared for, light leaving their eyes in the mud next to him.
“It’s wheezing.” Your grandfather had said solemnly. “The wheezing is how you know.”
Eddie Munson was wheezing. His eyes were wild. Dustin collapsed to his knees beside his friend.
You only registered that you were shouting when the wet, blood-sticky hairs on Eddie’s forehead shuddered under the force of your air. “Why didn’t you run ? Why didn’t you fucking run ?”
Eddie’s gulp was wet. Blood made his teeth pink: it leaked down his chin, across sallow skin. He was shuddering, the weight of his head wet with sweat. “...G—got tired of running, man.” Even now, here, he was chuckling. It sprayed red, wet drops across his cheek.
Dustin had tears streaming down his face. “Hey man, you’ll be fine, we… we’ll get you to a h—hospital man, you’ll be fine , okay?”
“Yeah. Yeah.” Eddie repeated blankly.
You fumbled for his hand. Those long fingers: you adored them. Always turning radio dials, throwing cheese-balls at you and cackling, plucking unforgiving guitar strings. So strong, usually. So cavalier. Cold, now. Slick with blood.
“I didn’t run. Okay?” Eddie was gurgling. “You gotta— tell ‘em, okay? Tell ‘em I didn’t run.”
“No, Eddie, c’mon. Tell them yourself.” You begged. Pleaded and cajoled like at any second he might be done with this foolishness and stand up. But you weren’t stupid. You knew how much blood was in a human body. And far too much of it was soaking his jacket now.
“Look after the sheepies, kid. Promise me.”
“Eddie—” Dustin wobbled out.
“ Promise me.”
“I promise. Shit. I promise. I promise .”
Eddie tilted his head back in your lap. For half a second, all you saw was his face streaked in sunlight.
That was two months ago. The closest you've ever gotten to the dangerous, deeply hidden part of you. The part that was head over fucking heels for Eddie Goddamn Munson. He was smoked out, totally toasted, and the Kiss record was skipping again and again but neither of you gave enough of a shit to change it because you were carding fingers through his hair on your lap, and he just looked so fucking pleased . Like nobody had done that for him before.
Sunlight on his face, coming through the blinds. God, he looked beautiful .
“Think I’m gonna graduate this year, b… booksmarts?” He croaked up at you. He was crying. It was like someone had punched a hole through your chest.
“...Yeah.” You said weakly. Smiling. You always smiled at each other. “Yeah, Eddie-bear. I think this is really gonna be your year.”
His eyes were so big and so wet.
They never left yours, even when he died.
“Sometimes you picture me, I'm walking too far ahead.” You waved a hand up and down in the wind outside the van, feeling the air resistence. Only three miles home. Then Eddie would turn around, double back to the park. He could have said no, to this deal. It wasn’t very good for his mileage. “You're calling to me, I can't hear what you've said.” But for some reason he didn’t.
Eddie put on his turn signal.
“Then you say, ‘go slow’, and I fall behind.” You let your eyes fall shut. Fine. If Eddie wasn’t going to play along and sing, you’d do it yourself. “The second hand unwinds.”
“...That was the most metal thing ever!” Dustin was screaming and grinning ear to ear, and you could barely hear the words over the roaring race of your own heart in your ears. You spat out pieces of upside-down flecks from your mouth.
Wait. What?
The curly-haired kid and his mentor were jumping in tandem, delighted and crowing their victory. The pride was contagious. Adrenaline made your nerves fucking fizz : you found yourself smiling without even meaning to, camo vest tight around your chest as you gasped for breath. It was a weaker smile than before.
Eddie glanced at you as he manically celebrated.
Your heart skipped a beat again.
But it felt… wrong. You were grimy and dirty and so so fucking strung out on stress, but something was… off. Something itched at the back of your mind. Maybe you were frazzled.
Eddie was ranting jubilantly and this time you slapped at him before Dustin could, to shut him up. The bats rattled around the trailer, infuriated. So you all circled up. Back to back to back.
This wasn’t right . Everything was double-layered, deep fried. Slightly out of place, like a table moved one inch to the left.
Why did this all feel so achingly familiar ? And why was your throat so fucking tight ?
The bats exploded through the vent in the ceiling and you reached for the discarded shield by your feet, whistling sharply and throwing it at Eddie, who barely caught it with a fumbling hand. His eyes lit up and he slammed it against the ceiling, bats thudding uselessly against it like popcorn on the stove.
He gestured to it, rings glittering hazily in the supernatural blue. “Quick thinking.” His words were heavy with exhaustion, but the small smile remained. Always smiling for you. Always bringing cheer to the table.
You shrugged, hand tightening painfully on your spear. “It just kinda came to me.” You paused. “... Shit, Eds, your room vent.”
Thos big bambi eyes went wide and all three of you burst into action.
Too late. Again. Door slammed, bats ratting on the wood, and Eddie shrieking at you both you climb the rope.
You hesitated following Dustin up, something tickling the back of your mind. You threw a glance over your vest-clad shoulder. “You’ll be right behind me?” You confirmed.
Eddie nodded, half-focused, licking his lips and lowering his stance, ready for any demobats. “Always, man, always.”
When Dustin pulled you into the upright world, Eddie hesitated at the rope, and severed it. He ran, and he took the bats with him and you were swearing up a fucking storm because why didn’t you see that coming? It was so obvious , you should have seen it coming. It was right in front of your face. You pushed Dustin a little forcefully back into the upside-down. He shrieked as he fractured his ankle.
And then you found Eddie in a sea of dead demobats and your heart dropped into your fucking feet because you’d seen this before . How, you didn’t know.
Eddie’s head in your lap. Looking up at you with those big, wet, eyes. Tears cut fresh tracks in the grime on his face. “I didn’t run. Okay? You gotta— tell ‘em, okay? Tell ‘em I didn’t run.”
Dustin was sobbing, clutching at his mentor’s ruined, shredded, crimson stained shirt helplessly. All you could focus on were those big, wet eyes. The way his mouth opened and closed, teeth blood-pink. He wasn’t smiling anymore.
His eyes stayed open when he died.
“If you’re lost you can look and you will find me!” You crowed out into the wind, moving your shoulders to the beat. Your jeans squeaked on the shitty vinyl van upholstery. “Time after time!”
“ Hmm hmm mm mm .”
Your gaze jumped to Eddie. His eyes were still on the road, hands still wrapped around the wheel, but that was unmistakably him humming ‘time after time’ along to the chorus. Eddie Munson, notorious music snob, humming to Cyndi Lauper , pop legend?
“If you fall, I will catch you,” You continued on as normal as if you hadn’t heard it. “I will be waiting! Time after time!”
“Hmm hmm mm mm.”
“...That was the most metal thing ever!” Dustin was screaming and grinning ear to ear, and you could barely hear the words over the roaring race of your own heart in your ears. He and Eddie were grabbing at one another and jumping up and down jubilation.
“...What the fuck ?” You muttered to yourself. It was lost in the noise of celebration.
Okay. So you were hallucinating. You took a bad tab of acid, Eddie never was too careful with his sourcing, and now you were flashing back, living through the same hellish five minutes of life- of a dream? Over and over again. That was the only reasonable explanation.
That, or the universe broke.
Your normal cautionary shove at Eddie was soft. He barely registered it, gaze flickering up to you when you told him to keep it down. Had his face always looked that soft? Or were you just analyzing it now? Analyzing it desperately, because clearly you were going crazy and who knew how many more times your brain would replicate that face before it devolved into psychotic smears of color?
The three of you crept into the living-room. You glanced at the vent and pressed your lips together.
“Hold this.” You ground out at Dustin, pushing your spear into his chest. Before the plastic of the vent even broke you hauled a chair over, hopped on top, and slammed your shield over it. Moments later the first demo-bat screeched and bumped into it.
“Oh shit,” Eddie said approvingly, “Nice save. I didn’t even think about—”
But you were brushing past him, avoiding his eyes, because you knew what they looked like filled with fucking death tears. And what was one surefire way to stop them? Stop the fucking bats . You snatched his shield out of his hand as you went, shouldering open his room door and getting up onto the dusty, vine-mushy bed, popping the device over the second filter. More bats pinged off it.
A sealed house. New territory. You stood on the mattress, crouched and low, waiting for the world to implode. Eddie and Dustin watched you from the doorway, now looking as equally wary of your obvious paranoia as they were of the bats surrounding the trailer.
Nothing exploded. You let out an exhale of relief.
And then the first reinforcement failed.
A wooden plank over the living room window was compromised, a fleshy, vile demobat clawing and snarling and dragging its god-awful fangs across the wood. When Dustin shrieked and stabbed it, two more took its place. Another reinforcement failed: the mesh over Eddie’s bedroom window. Another. Then another.
“Shit. Shit! Jesus— shit!” Eddie swung and sliced a bat in half as it sailed across the room, herding you and Dustin to the rope. “Go! Fucking go!”
Dustin was already shimmying up, and god, it was happening again, wasn’t it? You held your ground: slashing out with your waist-sheath bowie knife and nicking a bat’s wing. It collided with the ground and you brought your boot down on its skull with a crunch .
“You first, Eddie!” You called over the cacophonous screeching.
He shot you a look over your frantic, hypervigilant fending-off of the bats. “Absolutely not ! Get your ass up there, booksmarts!”
“You first !”
Eddie whipped around to face on on instinct, frustrated. A bat tail wrapped around his neck and he gagged, eyes bulging, dropping his weapon. A shriek of dismay exploded from your lips: in the two seconds that both of you weren’t fighting off the invaders they surged into the room, all wings and deafening calls and biting claws.
There were talons tangling in your hair, screaming past your face. Warm, wet blood running down from your hairline. They were on you, you could feel them, the weight of little alien bodies and the gnash of teeth shredding you deep and painful. But all you could focus on was Eddie: Eddie, on the floor of his trailer, blue in the face, lithe hands scrabbling to unwrap the meaty cords from his neck. Eddie, screaming brokenly when a bat landed on his stomach and started tearing through his insides like wet paper.
He looked so afraid.
You tried to surge forward but all you could do was fall. There were teeth on you, in you, and blood was in your eyes and somewhere above you Dustin was screaming—
“After my picture fades, and darkness has turned to gray. Watching through windows, you're wondering if I'm okay.” Your voice was barely audible over the radio.
Sometimes you wondered why Eddie let you listen to your (as he called it ) stupid music. He acted like he despised it. But every school day, like clockwork, for fifteen minutes, he was silent about his opinions on it. Wind in his long hair, cheeks ruddy from a day of schoolwork and exertion. Just… listening.
You hoped it was for you. Because he liked you. But Eddie was an enigma. He talked about the people he found hot, pointed out sexy models in magazines, but never actually asked anybody out. Kept it all locked up.
And you weren’t going to prod.
“Secrets, stolen, from deep inside. And the drum beats out of time!”
“...That was the most metal thing ever!” Dustin was screaming and grinning ear to ear, jumping up and down with Eddie.
“No, no, no.” You groaned. Dropping your shield and spear with clatters, putting hands on your face. Sinking to a crouch. “No. No.”
The celebrations fizzled out.
“...Uh, hey. Booksmarts?” The endearment sounded wary on Eddie’s lips. “You alright?”
“ No .” God, it just had to be you, huh? Maybe this was Vecna’s doing. Did he do rings of hell? He preyed on people with issues, that you knew for sure. A big fat fucking emotional hang-up the size of the sun might be like junk food to him. Irriststable. “No, Eddie. I’m not fucking alright.”
“Shit. Did one of ‘em get you?”
“Nope.” You peeked from between your fingers. Yep. Still a blue, dust-mote-filled world. Still trapped watching the love of your life die and over and over again. “I’m living a nightmare.”
Eddie relaxed, looking warily around. “Yeah, well. You and me both.”
The demobat swarm shrieked around the trailer, the sound rattling the metal walls like a warning. The ever-present threat looming near. Eddie and Dustin were already huddling up, and shit, you just shut up and joined them. Because what could you say? Why bother even trying to explain that you’d lived this all before? That you knew how it ended? They were geeks . They’d have questions. And the second any of you got distracted, ever, the bats got you.
Fucking bats. Why did it have to be bats?
Back to back to back again. Your mind was reeling. What could you do? What could you do ? Eddie’s raised elbow bumped into yours. It felt like an electrical conduit, because the last time you’d fucking touched him you had been scream-crying, watching the light leave his eyes on the floor.
You bumped his elbow again, just to remind yourself that he was real.
“We stick together, right guys?” You said aloud, voice echoing. “Nobody tries to be a hero.”
Dustin agreed emphatically. Eddie stayed silent.
The bats broke in. Dustin started to scream. You and Eddie helped him up the rope, team-work style. The metalhead finished shoving Dustin up and over to the other side with a grunt, then reached out to help you do the same. One foot going up on the chair he had slammed under the gate, his hands reaching for your waist.
You smacked his grip away. No point in beating around the bush. “You’re gonna stay here, aren’t you? Distract the bats for team one?”
He blinked. “...I don’t—”
“Because if you’re staying, I’m staying too.”
“Can you guys hurry the fuck up ?” Dustin was looking up at the both of you from the other side. His fabric-framed face was panicked.
“Smarts, you need to leave .” Eddie’s voice was quiet. His gaze searching yours like he was looking for something. It was a look that made you feel pinned. Like a butterfly to a corkboard.
“Fuck you. I’m staying.” You said it with venom. A poison condensed straight from Eddie’s dead, dead face, still floating in your fevered brain. You didn't want to see it again. Please , you didn’t want to.
Eddie stepped closer.
For one stupid second, you thought he was going to kiss you. Your guard went down.
Eddie grabbed you by the waist— he was shockingly strong for such a lanky bastard— and the world was spinning around you. You barely registered him calling out “ Dustin, help me out! ” as he was hoisting you up and clambering onto the chair, raising you up, up, up, and smaller hands were grabbing you vest and pulling you down —
And you landed back in your world with a grunt and the wind knocked out of you. Staring up at the fleshy, tendon-esque rift and the blue light seeping out of it. Staring up at Eddie, his shoulders heaving with exertion. He grabbed his spear and shield.
“ No! ” You were already screaming, trying to get to your feet while Dustin dragged you off the mattress, because you were on the right side and that meant Eddie was as good as dead.
He cut the rope. His eyes were apologetic as he left.
Dustin fractured his ankle going back in.
Munson died with his blood smeared across your cheek in a wet, cold path. Exactly where you’d wiped his spittle away from his mouth, then wiped tears off your own face.
His eyes never shut.
The next time the trailer door closed and Eddie and Dustin were crowing about how epic the performance had been, you punched Eddie in the jaw. Your knuckles cracked against bone. He reeled, back slamming against the vine-covered wall and sending the collectable cups rattling while Dustin exploded into protests of shock.
You pushed past the two spluttering boys and patched up the vents.
This time, when the rope was severed, instead of Dustin scrambling ahead to take the first leap, you hazarded it. Landing painfully, but not debilitatingly, by some small miracle. For a fraction of a second you felt actual hope . There was time. There was time . You didn’t even wait for Dustin. Just tore out of the trailer at breakneck speed, heavy army vest flopping.
It was not a miracle.
It was a curse.
You were just fast enough to Eddie standing in the eye of the storm, shield raised, turning wildly around to protect himself from attacks on all sides. Just fast enough to see a tail around his neck send him plummeting to the ground. Just fast enough to scream and run to him through the swarm of monsters that were already ripping your soft skin away. Fast enough to see the eaten, fleshy craters deep in his abdomen, and the blood that welled out of their gaping holes like water.
Dustin screamed helplessly for both of you when you collapsed on top of a choking, dying Munson, blood in both of your mouths. Practically leaking the stuff from everywhere.
“Eddie…” Was all you could croak out, hearts thumping together, chest to chest, sweat and iron in your nose and insidious cold spreading through your body. He felt so small under you.
A weak hand flopped up to hold your back, to press your dying self to him, and—
“...That was the most metal thing ever!” Dustin was screaming and grinning ear to ear, jumping up and down with Eddie.
What was it that the universe wanted from you, exactly? To torture you? To watch you squirm like a worm on a hook? Some sort of penance, maybe, for the pining?
It really could be Vecna. It hurt bad enough.
At least Eddie wasn’t remembering.
You took solace in that, when in a fit of entropic frustration you said fuck it , slid past Eddie and out onto the reinforced porch, barred the door, and stepped out into the swarm. At least he wouldn’t remember the way he was screaming your name, bloodcurdling and horrified, slamming his body weight against the door. He wouldn’t remember his own wide eyes watching you get torn apart by teeth through the makeshift grate.
But you would.
“If you’re lost you can look and you will find me!” You pointed at Eddie with two fingers as the van took a turn down the side-street. It rumbled over a pothole.
“Time after time!” His singing was mocking and falsetto, batting his eyelashes like the pop stars on the TV screen. Mocking, but you’d take what you could get.
“If you fall I will catch you, I’ll be waiting!”
You both sang. “ Time after time! ”
The seventh time, you wandered to the goopy couch, sat down, and screamed into a pillow.
The ninth, you laid all your cards out on the table to them both. The conversation grew so convoluted, so wishy-washy, that you completely forgot about the grates until it was too late.
The tenth, you looked Eddie dead in the eye and asked if he was Vecna pretending to be Eddie. He looked at you like you’d grown a third head.
The sixteenth time, you cried. Open-mouthed, snotty sobs, because seconds ago Eddie’s head had been cradled in your scratched-to-shit hands and he had been running shaking fingers down your face, leaving trails of crimson and telling you to stop being dramatic. He meant it in a way that was supposed to make you smile. But he was choking on his own blood.
And on the twentieth time you’d watched Eddie Munson die, you realized you were completely and irrevocably in love with him. Not just romantically. No, of course, you have to go and love everything about him. His grins. His laughs. His little quirks, and mannerisms, and weird combination of cynicism and optimism, and how tacticle of a person he was when you got to know him. You loved the way his tongue stuck out between his teeth when he focused. You loved the stupid, random monologues he broke out into. You loved how he watched and he listened and he cared . God, he cared so much.
And you realized you'd rather throw yourself at the demobats for all eternity before having to see Eddie Munson, the bravest man in the world, lying dead on the street again.
“If you’re lost you can look and you will find me!” You both sang in tune now. Eddie slapped the wheel to the drums. “Time after time!”
You liked this. Liked it when that last shred of self-consciousness, the dredges of desperately trying to preserve his image and identity, fell away. And it was just Eddie. Goofy, amicable, marshmallow-heart Eddie.
“If you fall I will catch you, I’ll be waiting! Time after time!”
When the song started to roll to a close, synth swimming through the air, Eddie was still bobbing his head. That tongue coming out to wet his lips: a sure tell that he was thinking.
“You know,” he said over the last notes, “it’s not terrible. The song.”
Now it was your turn to mock. “What? Really? Egads!”
He scoffed, all toothy-bright. “Yeha, yeah. There are better ones, though. What’s that, uh, that one Dustin’s friend is always blaring all emo in the halls?”
“...Max?” Your brow furrowed in thought. “Um, Running up that Hill, I think. Kate Bush.”
He fistpumped, “Yes! That’s good. That’s original. How’s it go, uh…. ‘ If I only could, I’d make a deal with god, and get him to swap our places! ’” Eddie burst into such a god-awful falsetto you were sure all cats in a ten mile radius had just started to hiss.
You laughed and punched his shoulder across the center console. “Okay, wise guy. Point made. You don’t like pop.”
“I dunno. I like some pop.”
“Oh yeah? What kind?”
“Hmm. Kinda whatever you like. Hey. Don’t look so smug.”
Number twenty-one brought you peace.
You finally, finally knew what to do.
Eddie and Dustin were still crowing, riding the high of a totally sweet guitar solo, and you robotically lifted Dustin’s shield from his hand and went to go block the living-room vent.
They wandered around, on-guard, as bats threw themselves against the trailer’s shell with fervor. Huh. Weird. The sound didn’t really bother you anymore. You’d felt their teeth in your neck, after all. What’s the worst that could happen? You get your heart destroyed again?
In fact, if bad came to worst again in the next few minutes, the bats would get reacquainted with you.
Thunder rolled outside the trailer, and Eddie and Dustin craned their heads to listen to it like they were hearing it for the first time. You weren't. The thunder meant you had exactly forty-five seconds before the demobats started chewing their way into the trailer and it became a deathtrap. So you steeled yourself, and you spoke.
“We need to go.” They turned to look at you. You squared your shoulders. ‘I’m serious, guys. We need to go now.”
Eddie looked affronted. “W- no, man, we can’t leave. We haven’t given ‘em enough time. They need, like, way more.”
“You got the bats away from Vecna’s lair. We’ve all seen that they only fly above it. Not inside it.” You looked between the two of them. Tired, sweaty, exhausted. “We did our job, okay? Done and dusted. And if we wanna stay alive , we leave. Now.”
“Not a goddamn chance.” Eddie countered.
A flair of frustration licked up your spine. “Why the hell not?”
“Because I , booksmarts,” Eddie was all in in your face, now, resignation deepening the stress lines on his forehead, “am not gonna run at the smallest sign of danger. I don’t do that anymore.”
God, he was stubborn. “You know why doesn’t run from danger, Eddie? Dead people. And dead people don’t run at all. Because they’re dead .”
The ceiling creaked ominously.
“...Eddie, uh.” Dustin sounded uneasy speaking out. “That might be a sort of… good point. That roof is tin . It’s gonna split open like an applesauce lid any second now.”
“See? The kid knows his applesauce. And his metals.” You gestured curtly from the rocker to the dangling sheet-rope. “Leaving. Now.”
Eddie was pausing again. Licking his lips. Thinking. And then he was backing away, weapons at the ready, towards the door.
“Whoa, whoa, whoa, where are you going?” Dustin asked in alarm.
“You kids can go. Get to the Creel house or some shit. But Steve? And Robin, and Nancy? They need us. Need me. And I don’t wanna be chicken-shit in the face of danger anymore.”
Oh, fuck this .
You lunged forward. In a half-second you had Eddie by the vest strap, but also by the chin, your fingers wrapped around the strong, stubbly jawline. When he tried to pull away from you, you got closer. “Hey. Hey. ” You said severely. Forcing his ink-brown eyes to meet yours. “You listen to me , Edward Munson. You. Are not . Chicken-shit. You’re the bravest guy I know.”
He let out a cynical laugh under your grip. You hissed over it.
“You are! Jesus, are you really that blind? Eddie, you… you approached me , when I was new and had nobody . You willingly befriended a total loser . You walk around being completely, totally yourself, and never giving a damn what people think about it. You play nerdy games, and deal weed, like, right under the deputy officer’s nose, and… and you’re here , Eddie.”
When you looked up at him again, your eyes were wet. Stupid fucking tears, undercutting the things you’d always wanted to say to him. “You’re here even though you could be hiding. I mean, christ— you stole a camper van for us. Drove right through hicksville even though you know they want you dead! You are— hey, look at me—” You readjusted his jaw, and oh man, he was red, “—You are someone I’ve looked up to ever since I fucking got here .”
The trailer was silent save for the endless, layered, screeching roar of the bats overhead.
“Bravery isn’t about… just mindlessly throwing yourself at shit that scares you.” Your voice was soft. “It’s picking battles. It’s surviving it and coming out better on the other side. A better person. A better man. What’s the point of being brave, if you’re not around?”
“...I’m tired of running, Smarts.” Eddie’s voice was weak.
“I know, Eds. I know. But you’re gonna have to do a lot more of it. Gonna have to be strong. And I know you got that in you. You’re the upside-down’s first and only electric guitar solo act, remember? You’re more badass than Ace Frehley.” When he smiled, skin shifting under your hand, it made you want to cry. Always smiling. “There he is. There’s the guy I fell I love with.”
Behind you Dustin dropped his spear with a comical thunk .
God, it felt good to say it out loud. Like closure.
Eddie’s mouth hung open. It was like someone had hit pause on him. So you just stood up on tiptoe and pressed a gentle, chaste kiss to the sweaty skin between his brows. More silence. Another roll of thunder: demobats clawing at the roof.
You gently pushed the tall rocker towards the rift rope. “Go. Get out of here, while you can. You too, you menace.” You tacked on to Dustin. The freshman didn’t need to be told twice: he was already hauling ass and muttering to himself.
Eddie grabbed the knotted sheet with a grimey hand as Dustin fell upwards. Stopping. “You’re staying.” He realized quietly.
You smiled. Your first genuine one in what felt like years. “Well, somebody’s gotta be the stupid one, right? Might as well be booksmarts.” When he opened his mouth to protest you talked over him. “Eddie, if you’ve ever trusted me, in all the time we’ve known each other, trust me now. Go. Besides. I, uh. I think I’ve just made a deal with god. Swapping places, and stuff.”
The corner of his mouth twitched and you swore, you swore for a second he looked like he was going to cry. Before he could second-guess himself he leaned forward, into your personal space, and kissed you back. Right on the forehead. He pulled back, looking down at you. Fuck, you were weak for those bambi eyes. So much kindness in them. “See you soon?”
“Yeah.” You swallowed the tightness in your throat. “Just gotta take care of some bats first.”
And then, after twenty-one fucking tries, Eddie Goddamn Munson was clambering into the safety of the normal world and hightailing it to the rest of his life, and bats were still clawing at the ceiling. Slowly losing interest in the quieter trailer. Possibly considering returning to Vecna's lair.
Well, now that just wouldn’t do at all. You took a deep breath, unlocked the trailer door, and stepped out. The lingering kiss burned on your forehead.
“If you’re lost you can look and you will find me !” You belted out at the top of your lungs into the gray-blue air, running on adrenaline and success and fucking relief . You pulled Eddie’s bike free of the vines and slammed down onto it. “Time after time!”
You had it, for a while. Sunlight, and smiles, and a guy who made you kick your feet on your bed and imagine what your first kiss would be like. Good summer nights. Stressful finals. Life.
But now? Now it was time to be brave.
You could hear that last van ride Eddie ever gave you in your head. His low voice singing along with you: actually singing, when he stopped faking it and started enjoying it.
“If you fall I will catch you, I'll be waiting!” The tears flowed freely. The sound echoed. You pedaled hard. “Time after time! Time after time!”
“Time after time!” The bats would catch you eventually.
“Time after time!”
“Time after time!”