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Chapter Text

Eddie took one last drag from his joint before he pinched it out and stuck the rest of it into his coat pocket.  He’d made this most recent purchase three weeks ago, before Halloween, but he was getting sick of having to stretch his stash as long as possible before he got more from Rick.  At this point, even though it was a stupid idea and Wayne would never forgive him, he was thinking of maybe taking Rick up on his offer of getting a permanent discount if he started selling at the high school.  He would probably be okay as long as he was careful, and Eddie knew all about being careful.  

He smiled to himself, laying on top of the van in the warm-ish November weather.  He’d driven out to the quarry to enjoy what felt like the last sunny day of the year.  Not to his normal spot which was closer to the water, but near enough.  It was pretty morbid to be out here after they found the body of the Byers’ kid, he knew, but hell this was the only spot that felt private enough in this whole town.  He needed privacy, he needed one space where he could just be himself and not hold it all inside himself all day.  He wasn’t dumb, he didn’t ever do anything here except smoke and fuck around on his acoustic.  Sometimes he plotted out his campaigns, but usually that’s what he used school for, not like he was going to use that time “constructively” as Miss Kelly had suggested to him in the beginning of the semester.  Apparently, she thought he was at risk for failing his senior year.  But that was a stupid idea, and whatever, he didn’t care about school anyway.  

The day was gray but warm enough that he left his leather and battle jackets in the back of his van and soaked up what little sun there was.  This was one of the few vices he had - aside from smoking anything he could get his hands on - because before that first day out of the Lab he’d never felt the sun on his skin.  Every time he felt the warmth of the sun, every time he squinted his eyes against the light, even when it was dim and faded like today, he knew he was free and it felt so fucking good.  

He heard some shouting nearer to the quarry.  Kids voices - high pitched and screaming.  It reminded him of the kids at the trailer park when they played, hollering loud enough that Eddie always thought something must be wrong.  Wayne had to reassure him for years that’s just what kids sounded like.  

It was so different from anything he remembered from his childhood.  No one would have ever raised a voice because then bad things would happen.  

He shook his head to help banish the thought, trying to focus again on the warmth of the sun on his skin and the body high of the weed he’d smoked to get him back to his happy place, but the shouting continued.  

Fuck it.  He knew that he’d either have to scare the kids off or just leave the quarry himself if he wanted to get his peace back.  Each scream reminded him of That Fucking Place and he couldn’t take it today.  

He’d been having a good Saturday after a pretty good week.  His teachers mostly left him alone, he’d been inspired by some dumbass in the hallways to give one of his lunch time soliloquies which he thought had been truly inspirational, and no one had come after Garaeth for the third week in a row proving to Eddie that his aura of freaky menace did successfully extend to anyone he took under his wing.  

He’d finished updating his campaign notes in homeroom on Tuesday since the session last week had gone off the rails - in the best way.  What Eddie had planned for them was to solve a puzzle, find a small enchanted weapons cache, which would in turn give them the bonuses they needed to defeat the Kruthik at the end of the dungeon.  Instead, the Hellfire guys walked right around the puzzle Eddie had set up for them.  They’d come in basically empty handed and it had been a slaughter.   The Kruthik got away and Gareth, the only Freshman in his group, was going to have to reroll a new character because he’d failed his saving throw and no one in the party had any spell slots left to heal him.  

Eddie loved when his players did all sorts of stupid shit like that, the unexpected decisions that kept him on his toes each week. That’s why he loved the game. An unexpected decision or chance roll of the dice could change a campaign in unexpected ways.  

He hopped down from the roof of his van, grabbing his jacket and vest from where he had stashed them inside.  He shrugged on his jackets, donning his full Freak armor, and went to scare the kiddies away from here so he could go back to relaxing in goddamned peace.  

He rounded the outcropping of rocks between his van and the kids.  The three of them were all looking down at the pool in the quarry and they were probably too close to the edge for Eddie to scare them right now, so he’d wait until they turned around away from that drop.  Give them room to scatter before he played the big, scary metalhead wolf to their little sheepies.  

Before Eddie could blink they started scrambling back from the ledge as a skinny kid, dressed in a green jacket, floated up and over them.  It made Eddie’s stomach sink with dread.  There was, as far as he knew, only one reason that could happen.  It was someone from the lab.  Eddie glued himself to the rockwall in panic and watched the boys as he tried to think this through.   

Who was it if it wasn’t him, though?  There had been no survivors as far as Eddie knew.  Was it the kid who was floating?  Probably not, because he seemed terrified and confused.  And none of the other kids watching had the telltale bloody nose that came with using that much power.  

Jesus Christ, whatever was happening here he needed to be far away from it.  That was The Munson Doctrine’s rule number one of staying under the radar.  Stay away, run as fast as you can, from anything weird happening around you.  His panic kept him locked in place no matter how much he tried to turn around and run.

After the floating kid landed and everyone had gaped at him, out of nowhere one of the kids was blown back to the ground and Eddie could see a girl walking toward the group of boys with her hand outstretched before her.  A girl in a pink Easter dress and a blue oversized jacket.  More importantly, a girl with a recognizably shaved head. Eddie fought the urge to touch his own scalp and reassure himself he had a monster head of hair now.  

She also had the bloody nose Eddie had been searching for on the kids.  

It took a second for his brain to catch up but he realized he recognized her.  It was Eleven.  She was older now, probably the same age as the other kids in the quarry but she was also just the same as the kid he remembered from the Lab.  

He remembered standing behind her in line during their walks to the experimentation rooms, her little feet dashing to keep pace with Papa.  

He remembered her in the Rainbow Room, struggling to make the red disk fall into the slot she had chosen.  Eddie wasn’t great with that either and he felt for her, because at least he’d been good at other things.  She seemed to struggle with everything.

He remembered being sick.  She had shared half of her sandwich with him the first time he’d been let out of his room around the others.    

She advanced towards the group of boys and broke one of the other kids arms with a flick of her hand, his arm hanging at an odd angle as he tried to cradle it to his chest.  Eddie pushed down a wave of nausea and memories that he didn’t want to ever think about again, small bodies broken and bloody on the floor.  

The two boys Eleven had attacked ran away.  Eddie ducked behind the rocks to make sure the kids didn’t see him as they ran past.  Then one of the remaining kids, the kid in the hat, started screaming, “she’s our friend and she’s crazy!  You come back here and she’ll kill you!”

He watched the two runners to make sure they didn’t turn around or go towards his van, but both were safe.  When he turned around he could see the two boys cheering as Eleven smiled wanly at them.  He knew that smile.  He knew the collapse that followed after the hard work and the praise.  

He found his panic receding the more he realized that he’d found another survivor. Despite his better judgment he stepped out from behind the rock.  Jesus Christ, what was he doing?  His head was screaming at him to run.  The first rule, he kept thinking to himself, is not to be around anything weird.  That’s the first fucking rule.  

The trio turned at the noise of his feet on the gravel, Eleven straightening up despite her obvious exhaustion, ready to defend her friends again.  The two boys' eyes were huge with surprise and fear.  He held his hands up and said, “Hey no, don’t be afraid.”  The boys took a step back and Eddie realized that he probably sounded more frightening than he meant to.    It’s not like he was used to being sincerely nonthreatening.  

But that was his sister staring him down.  

“I’m not here to...”  He wasn’t sure how to complete that statement.  He was scary, that was his whole look.   He did want to step in and involve himself in whatever was going on here.  There was probably nothing he could say to get the boys to relax.  Maybe, he thought, he should focus only on Eleven.  

“Get back, weirdo.”  The floating boy said, stepping fully in front of Eleven.

“Look, I just want to say hi to her.”  He nodded towards Eleven.  “Make sure she’s okay.”

“She’s fine.”  Hat kid said.

Jesus, would these kids just relax?  “She looks tired.”  Eddie said.  He could barely hear his own breathing over the rush of blood in his ears.  He thought they’d all died years ago.  He thought he was the only survivor.

This was his sister.

He slowly closed the distance between himself and the trio, with each step Eleven became more curious, blinking at him with wide eyes, and the boys’ hackles rose.  

“I’m going to take off my watch.”  He said while he lowered his hands out in front of him, the palm of his left hand open while his right hand unbuckled the band.  Slowly, he moved his left arm out towards her, exposing the pale skin of his wrist and the number he always kept covered.  “Hi, Eleven, long time no see.”  He said.  His wrist was clearly visible to the trio of kids now, the zero one zero of his original name exposed to strangers for the first time since Wayne found him in the forest by the trailer park years ago.

She stared at his wrist, at first with confusion then with some kind of comprehension.  He heard the gasps from the two boys there as well.  Which meant they at least knew a little of what the numbers signified.  They obviously knew about Eleven's talents.  He waited for any sign of recognition from her but none came.  

Instead, her eyes rolled back in her head and she started to collapse, the effort and exhaustion of her earlier rescue finally catching up with her.  

He moved just in time to keep her head from hitting the ground and he cradled her, held his sister and protected her, as the two boys started shouting around him.  

+++

Ten tried not to pay too much attention.  It didn’t do any good to get caught up in whatever Two had decided to do that day.  But he kept goading Eleven.  At first it was kind of subtle.  Well, not really considering Two was not about subtlety.  He was brute strength personified, and as far as Ten could tell, Papa loved him for it.  

He’d started by playing with Eleven’s favorite game for well over half the play time.  Three and Five stood on either side of him encouraging him to move the red balls into the correct slots over and over again.  First he did it in number order, then reverse, then two at once.  All the while Ten sat with his new favorite game, the Magic 8 Ball, in the corner and surreptitiously watched the scene unfold in front of him.  Eleven watched Two, but she didn’t do a good job of watching unnoticed.  She stood just off to the side, train tracks forgotten as she stared at Two and his henchmen while they hogged her game.  

If that had been all, Ten wouldn’t have cared.  It’s not like a favorite game meant anything in here, everyone had to be good at everything after all.  They all had to be able to play any game in here if Papa or one of the nurses ever asked them to play it.  It would suck to miss out for a day since Eleven liked it, but the Rainbow Room was only ever a little bit fun.  Fun because it contrasted to being stuck alone in your room or in one of the testing rooms.  Fun because you got to mostly choose what you wanted to practice and that little bit of freedom helped get through everything else in a day.  

Generally one of the unspoken rules of the Rainbow Room was to give first dibs to the people who liked the game best.  It was polite.  It was the way things were done as far back as he could remember.

Which meant that Two was already being mean just by hogging her game but not mean enough to justify how sad Eleven looked.  

Then Two escalated.  He turned to Eleven, who was still blatantly staring at the trio who had confiscated her game, and said.  “What are you looking at?”  

Eleven, who was so damn quiet and still somehow never seemed to understand how to stop getting all the worst attention heaped on her said, “I would like to play.”

“But you are playing.”  Two said, pointing to the trains.  “Not that you’re very good with that game either.”  He snickered and his cronies snickered alongside him.  She wasn’t.  She wasn’t good at any game.  She wasn’t good at defending herself.  She wasn’t even good at staying under the radar.

Ten sometimes wondered how she survived the first testing days when she turned six.  Before she got her tattoo.  Most kids made it, but some vanished from the nursery for testing and then never graduated to the Lab.  Eleven was so untalented that Ten couldn’t see why she’d passed the initial phase at all. 

“Papa said we should share.”  Eleven said and Ten grinned with menace.  Why would she say something that dumb to Two?  It’s like she was trying to wind him up.  Ten could see the switch flip from mean to worse in Two’s head.  He was no longer content to sit there and keep Eleven from having any fun in the Rainbow Room that day.  Now he wanted to hurt her.  

“You’re right.”  He said, Five and Three laughing around him.  “I should share.”  He moved over a bit and patted the seat next to him.  “Why don’t we play together?”  

Eleven smiled a nervous smile, distrustful and tight, but she crab walked over to where he was gesturing anyway.  She was right not to trust Two, but Ten knew she couldn’t see a way out of whatever trap Two was setting up for her either.  

Ten wished Eight was here right now, she would step in to protect Eleven and everything would calm down again.  Then the ratcheting tension would have drained from the room by the time the nurses would come to line them up for the second round of testing for the day.  

One day, a few months ago, Eight had vanished.  Sometimes older kids did that too, just like the ones from the nursery.  Something happened and they were gone.  She’d always been kind and kept the worst bullying from Eleven.  Ten figured it wasn’t just because she was powerful, though she was, it was also because her powers could so monumentally affect and humiliate whoever she decided to target.  No one wanted to be on her bad side, not even Two.  

“I’ll tell you what, we’ll race.  Whoever can guide their ball to the right slot fastest wins.”  Two grinned.  “And the winner gets to decide what the loser's punishment will be.  Deal?”

Ten looked back down at his Magic 8 Ball.  He didn’t need to ask it to tell him the outcome of his shitty situation.    He didn’t hear Eleven say anything, but he imagined that she nodded because he heard the plinking noise of the balls dropping and then Two said.  “Looks like I win.”  Ten glanced up and could see Two’s feral smile at Eleven.  “I know, let’s play again, best two out of three?”  

Ten looked around the room, at anything but where Two and Eleven sat on the floor playing the game.  Most of the other kids in the room were doing what Ten was doing.  Making sure they looked like they were minding their own business.  Making sure not to catch the eye of either Three or Five in case they snatched you up and made you another target for Two.

“Aww, you lost three in a row?  How are you so bad at this?”  Two asked.  Eddie flicked his gaze over and could see Eleven’s shoulders were hunched and while she wasn’t crying, she looked like she might at any time.  

Two stood up behind Eleven, grabbed her head in between his two large hands and forced her to look ahead.  “It’s not even fun trying to beat you, if you can’t do anything.”  He said, his voice now low and cruel.  All false friendship falling away.  “Since you lost, I’m going to make you do this over again until you can or you die trying.”  

Ten made sure he was looking down when he rolled his eyes.  It was an empty threat, not because Ten didn’t believe Two would like to kill some of the kids in here, the way he acted, but because killing any of the kids would have been an immediate way to get vanished just like Eight.  Eleven, however, didn’t seem to know that.  She was looking at the game, her gaze held there by Two, but Ten could see her shaking, could hear her sniffles.  

Five and Three laughed as they dropped ball after ball down the open slots at the top of the board, each ball pinging down.  “All you need to do is to move a ball, any ball to slot nine.”  That would have been a difficult task even for Two solely because of so many moving targets, but for Eleven who could barely do it to one ball at a time it was impossible.  Two kept shaking her head telling her where each ball should go and then when it ended up somewhere else he’d knock her upside the head.  “Nothing?  You can’t move a single ball?”  

Ten couldn’t tell for sure, but he guessed that one of them was probably keeping any of the balls from falling into slot nine, so even if Eleven was trying, even if she could have done it once on her own, she couldn’t ever win this particular game.  

With every minute that eeked by Eleven shook more and more.  Eventually, she slumped forward as she passed out and Two let her go.  “Pathetic.”  He said as she fell to the ground.  

There was no way she would be able to participate in today’s testing and that meant she’d be punished by Papa today as well.  Ten wished he could go to her.  Help her wake up before the nurses got them to line up and wait for Papa.  To at least keep her from that humiliation, but Ten wasn’t that brave and strong.  

Eleven was late to training and she wasn’t at dinner that night, as Ten guessed would happen.  If he was a better person, Ten thought, he would have protected her today but he wasn’t anything special and helping her would put a target on his back so he held his tongue and ate his dinner.

Chapter Text

“Shut up, both of you.”  Eddie said, holding Eleven in his arms, trying to rein in his temper.  He usually didn’t, it was all part of the Munson mystique, but he knew that scaring the kids more than he already had wasn’t a good idea.  The boys kept shouting at him. 

The dark haired one pulled on his arm.  “Let her go!”

The one with the hat started pulling on his friend’s collar, “did you see his wrist, Mike?  Mike!”

“I know her.”  Eddie said, trying to keep his voice calm.  All of their drama became a moot point, because Eleven’s eyes fluttered open.  Once they could see she was awake, even if she was still in Eddie’s arms, the boys started to calm down.  

Eleven grabbed at his left wrist, the same one that the boy had been yanking, holding it in her hands in front of her face.  He could feel her breath against his palm as she stared at the number there.  “Ten.”  She said, and looked past his wrist right up to him.  He smiled at her and she smiled back, his little sister who had survived.  Her face fell, “I don’t remember.”  She said. “I don’t remember you.”

“Ouch.”  He said, trying to make sure he was still smiling at her.  Something reassuring.  He didn’t usually try to reassure people and he hoped he was doing it well.  “You really know how to hurt a guy.”  

“I am sorry.”  She said with a small frown, finally roused enough to sit up on her own.  Eddie pulled away.  He didn’t want to let her go, he felt like he could hug her forever, but he also knew he was a stranger to her and didn’t want to overwhelm her or make her feel uneasy.  

“Nah, don’t worry about it.”  He said.  “I’m not a very memorable guy.”  He laughed at his own joke, and for some reason so did the kid in the hat.  

The dark haired kid, Mike, pulled Eleven behind him, and demanded, “How do you know her?”

“Did you see his wrist?”  The other kid shouted at his friend, his tone round and full with condescension.  

“Yeah, Dustin, I saw his wrist, that doesn’t mean anything.”  Mike argued back at his friend.

“Doesn’t mean anything?”  The other kid, Dustin, began and then both boys were shouting at each other.  Instead of involving herself in their argument Eleven watched Eddie, as he stood up dusting his jeans off and grabbing the watch he dropped when he caught her.  He latched it back on his wrist covering his number and she smiled at him.  It was shy, but it was real.  

“Guys.”  He shouted, but they both ignored him.  “Hey,” he clapped his hands together loudly, in their faces.  The sound ricocheted around the quarry.  Finally, they both shut up and looked at him.  “I can prove it means something.”  He said.  His internal monologue was closer to a wail of panic, but Eleven obviously trusted the twerps so he had to do something to shut them up and, at the same time, prove to her that he was like her.  Maybe that would jog her memory?  He wished he knew why she didn’t remember him.

“I’m not,”  He said, gesturing towards Eleven and hoping to convey that whatever had happened in the last four years he didn’t have anything like her current talents.  “I can’t make kids fly or anything.”  

He watched Mike flush red as Dustin muttered, “that was awesome,” under his breath.

“But, um,”  He began but stopped because a demonstration was probably better anyway.  He didn’t have anything like the precision control Eleven seemed to have now and he hadn’t done anything like this in years, too scared to break rules two and three of the Munson Doctrine.  He figured, no matter how rusty he was, he could still knock some shit around.  He picked a rock, about the size of his sneaker, near the quarry wall.  He reached his hands toward it, and pushed.  It didn’t budge.  “Sorry, sorry, it’s been awhile.”  He reassured the kids behind him.  He put his hand back up and tried again, but nothing happened.

From behind him he heard Eleven pipe up.  “Focus.”  She said,  “and feel,” her voice was quiet and full of trepidation, “feel big.”  Papa had always been adamant that they were to remain calm when working.  Which never worked well for him.  Eddie was never calm and the only time he could focus was when he was playing music or moving around.    

“Okay, okay.”  He said, briefly turning back to smile at her.  He put his arm up again, this time he started thinking about the chords he was learning to Straight Through the Heart , how it felt to play it through for the first time the other day.  Or the way it felt when he played with his band and the song they had been working on all came together.  Through the memories of focus and delight he could feel the power surge in him, overflowing through and around his body.  Then he looked again at the rock and pushed.  This time it raised a few feet off the ground and flew back only stopped by the rock wall behind it before it crashed to the ground.  A small cloud of dust ascended into the air around it.  

Even before he turned around, he heard the two boys exclaiming behind him.  “Oh my god!”  

He didn’t look at them though, he looked at Eleven.  Her smile was sad when she said, “Why don’t I remember you?”

“I don’t know,”  he answered honestly, wiping the blood from his nose with the back of his hand.  “But I thought you were dead, so I think we’re even.”

She stepped around the Mike kid and he looked annoyed at Eddie but who cared what that kid thought.  “Dead?”

“Yeah, I escaped during the massacre.  I thought everyone in the lab died but me.”

“Massacre?”  The Dustin kid screeched.  Eddie and Eleven ignored him.  

“The first name I was given was Ten, but I didn’t like that once I was out of the lab.  My new name is Eddie.”  He said and he held his hand out to shake it, a reintroduction of sorts.  He thought it would be a little funny, disarming for her, since she looked so scared and confused.  She bypassed it completely, her little arms wrapping around him, hugging him tightly.  

“Eddie.  I like it.”  

“Thanks, kid.  I like it too.”  He hugged her back, her small frame enveloped in his arms.  

“El,”  Mike called again.  “We have to go!  Home.”

She pulled away from him again to turn toward Mike.  Eddie shouted at the kid, “hey, I just literally found my sister, who I thought was dead, can you wait?”  He looked down at her and she shook her head.  

“No, I am helping Mike.  We should go home.”  She said.  

“Can I at least give you a ride or something?”  He asked, not wanting to let her go.

“We’ve got bikes.”  Mike said, staring hard at Eddie.  What the hell was wrong with this kid?

“I have a van, you can put your bikes in the back of my van.”  He countered.

“No way, dude.”  Dustin said.  “Stranger danger.”

Eddie ran his hands down his face.  “I am literally her older brother.”  

“And we literally need to get home right now.”  

“Fine!”  Eddie said, throwing his hands up in the air.  He patted his battle jacket down, grabbing a scrap of paper from one pocket and a pencil stub from another.  He wrote his phone number on it.  “Call me when you get home.  I want to meet up with Eleven again.”

Mike grabbed the paper out of Eddie’s hand and ran with Eleven and Dustin away from the quarry, back towards where Eddie imagined their bikes had been left.  

“Fuck.”  He whispered to himself.  He’d broken his rules for staying safe big time.  No one but Wayne was supposed to know about the number on his wrist.  He was never supposed to use his talents.  He wasn’t supposed to ever show anyone any part of what he could do.    The anxiety he’d been pushing off since he saw Eleven started to rise, like a springtime flood. He sank down into a squat and warped his arms around his legs, making himself as small as possible.  

Now three children knew who he was and had seen him use his talents.  Even if one of them was his sister.  How the hell was his secret safe if three whole children knew about him.  And he’d given them his name and phone number!  Why not his school schedule or even his address so they could find him wherever he went? Panic curled around his rib cage and kept his breathing shallow.  His anxiety spiked and finally overwhelmed him.  

He needed to do something.  Anything.  He reached in his pocket for the last half of his joint.  He needed to get high right now.   He looked at the meager half joint.  No, he decided, more high than what he had left from his stash.  

With next steps set out before him, something he could take action on, he felt marginally better.  He unfolded himself and walked towards his van, digging his wallet out of his back pocket and seeing how much cash he had on him.  If he went to Rick’s place to buy then Rick would probably smoke him out.  He’d get the high he needed right now for free and come away with this next stash a week early.  Then if he was lucky, Eleven would call him tonight.  

+++

Rick did, in fact, smoke him out for free and Eddie was feeling much better.  With the haze of the weed in his system, the nervous energy that had gripped him the entire drive out to the lake house was firmly locked behind a green door of smoke.  He was probably too high to be driving right now, but he wanted to get back to the trailer in case the kids called.  One-night Sensation was playing on his radio, keeping the good feeling going.  

Near one of the nicer parts of town, he passed some cop cars, Eddie glanced at his speedometer and lifted his foot off the gas to let his van slow down.  He didn’t want to give the cops any reason to stop him just in case there were any more in the area or something.  The cops looked like they were helping at an accident.  Somehow, some idiot had flipped their ride, some commercial van.  

Playing it safe, he drove the speed limit the rest of the way home, his van bouncing down the road at the park as he pulled up in front of the trailer.  It was getting dark out and the porch light was on.  “Hey, Wayne.”  He called as he entered.  Friday and Saturday were Wayne’s days off, and he let Eddie have the van on those days.  It was another reason Eddie was thinking about maybe taking Rick up on that offer to deal at the high school.  He could use the money to get his own ride.  

“Hey yourself, kid.”  He looked up at Eddie from the couch.  He was eating boxed mac and cheese and watching the news but probably waiting for Airwolf to start.  

“Oh, mac and cheese.  That sounds great.”  

“There’s a few more boxes in the cabinet.”  Wayne glanced over him and gave him a solid look over.  “Damn it, Eddie.  You know I don’t like it when you drive high.”  

“Eh, it was fine.  The cops were all preoccupied with a car accident near Cherry.”

“It’s still a dumb choice.”  Wayne grumped at him.  Eddie started the water for the pasta and went to dump his jackets and backpack in his room.  “You staying in tonight or going out?”

“Might be going out later.”  Eddie said coming back out of his room.  “Waiting for a call though, unless they called earlier?”

Wayne shook his head no.  “You meet a girl or something?”  

“Nah,”  Eddie waved him off.  “Just some guys.”  Kids, but there was no way he was telling Wayne about this afternoon.  Not yet.  Obviously he would have to sooner than later.  

If he could manage it, he might try to convince Wayne to let Eleven move in with them.  They’d get her a new identity somehow.  Make her his sister in the eyes of the law.  Make her Wayne’s niece too.  That’d be nice.  Eddie would happily sleep on the couch for the rest of high school if Eleven could move in with them.  

He made his mac and cheese while Wayne watched the news.  When his meal was finally done, he asked, “Mind if I change the channel?” 

Wayne nodded.  “Sure, just not Wheel of Fortune .”

Eddie looked up at the clock.  It was six, so still about an hour away from Airwolf, which was Wayne’s favorite show and his bedtime treat before he wrapped up his Saturday night to get ready for work early Sunday.  Eddie held his bowl in one hand and clicked the dial to channel five.  A Jeffersons rerun was playing.  He adjusted the rabbit ears then removed his hand to check that the station stayed clear.  It didn’t.  He adjusted them again, standing back once more.  This time it came in as clear as channel five ever got and he sat down next to Wayne.    

Eddie watched the rest of The Jeffersons, then Airwolf with Wayne.  Wayne went to bed and Eddie was starting to get worried.  The kids should have called.  Eddie looked at the clock, it was just past eight.  When did kids with normal families go to sleep?  Eight was probably too early, but like how much longer would they be up?  Eddie’s leg began to jiggle.  

He had to see Eleven.  Tonight.  Or at least hear her voice again.  

He didn’t even know either kid’s last name, so he couldn’t look them up in the phone book.  Then, like the stupid idea to show off this afternoon had cracked open his skull, the idea that he could find Eleven if he looked for her popped into his head.  Pushing shit with his mind was very noticeable, but if he turned off the lights so they didn’t flicker and used the TV static to focus on, he could probably find her in the Void.  And no one would notice anything weird.  

“Fuck, fuck, fuck.”  He whispered under his breath as he turned out the lights in his trailer.  He flipped the TV to UHF and found a channel that was nice and fuzzy.  Channel forty-two, Eddie giggled hysterically to himself.  The meaning of life, the universe, and everything.  

He sat down in front of the TV and let his mind wander for a bit to calm down.  Then he started to rock back and forth, he’d always done this better when he could move a bit and the rocking always helped him focus.  It didn’t take long for him to end up in the black Void.  He whispered to himself, “Eleven” and focused on what the kid looked like.  

He turned around in the Void, his feet splashing underneath him, and in front of him was a house he didn’t recognize, otherwise alone in the black.  He walked inside, the walls falling away into the Void as he entered, and saw a bunch of people around the table, including Mike, Eleven, a few people he didn’t recognize, Chief Hopper, and also, Mrs. Byers and Jonathan Byers.  He knew Jonathan from school, Eddie was aware of all the loners and losers.  Mrs. Byers he knew from Melvald’s downtown.  Dustin he saw, was on the phone.  He looked around a bit more and found a stack of mail addressed to Joyce Byers with an address all nice and available for him to read.  

The only complicating factor was Hopper.  He’d have to wait for his high to be absolutely done and his eyes to not give him away before he drove over.  Hopefully, in that time the chief would leave, finished with whatever business he had over there and Eddie wouldn’t even have to deal with him.  He flipped the TV back to broadcast and turned on Fantasy Island .  

+++

Eddie startled up from the couch.  Fuck, he’d fallen asleep.  He looked at the clock and it was only 9:30.  Which was a little late, but there was a chance that Eleven was still at the Byers, right?  Eddie thought about looking for Eleven again in the Void but decided against it.  Too much effort in one day was probably why he’d fallen asleep in the first place.  He had no stamina for this stuff any more.  

He grabbed his jackets, donning them like armor.  His keys were still in his battle jacket pocket and he bounced out of his house and to the van.  The drive wasn’t too long and he only made one wrong turn.  There were no street lights out on the road to the Byers’ place and that made it difficult to find in the dark, but he did find it eventually.  He pulled up in front of it just as Steve Harrington of all people bounded out of the house fumbling his keys as Eddie’s headlights caught him.

Harrington looked rough.  Really rough and terrified. Eddie started to worry about what the fuck was going on.  He killed his headlights and Harrington blinked against the sudden darkness.  “Munson?”  He asked.  Then the lights in the house started to flicker in a way that Eddie was familiar with, a clear sign Eleven must be inside.  Steve turned to look at the house.  “Stay back.”  He shouted and then ran back in.  

For the third time that day, Eddie broke the first rule of the Munson Doctrine, run away from anything weird, and followed Harrington into the house.   

+++

Eddie ran inside and was immediately confronted with a very big slice of weirdness just not the weirdness he was expecting.  

It was big and it was terrifying.  

There was an honest to god monster in the living room of the house.  Jonathan and a girl he recognized from when he spied on the house in the Void were there as well.  Jonathan was on the floor, the girl was shooting at the monster as Harrington grabbed a nail studded bat from the floor and swung it at the thing.

“What the fuck?”  Eddie yelled as panic more all encompassing than anything he’d ever felt before seemed to glue his feet to the ground.  The girl screamed and pointed her gun at him, and he screamed more, but something about the mundanity of the gun was enough to snap him out of his paralysis.  He didn’t have time to do much as Harrington hit the thing again with his bat and the monster moved down the hallway getting stuck.  In a bear trap?  Eddie had no idea what was going on, but the girl shouted something about it springing the trap and Jonathan tossed a lighter down the hallway.

Whatever that thing was, it burst into flames the second the lighter hit the ground.  It screamed as if a flock of birds were dying.  The smell of decay and rot filled the air and Eddie thought he would gag.  Then as quickly as the fire started it was out and all that seemed to remain of the monster was a small bit of bubbling flesh attached to the bear trap.  “It’s gotta be dead, right?”  Harrington asked.  

Eddie could feel something, a residual psychic stain under the bear trap and he knew that the creature had escaped and ran away.  “No,”  He said like an idiot who could not help but draw attention to himself.  “It’s run away.”  

Three sets of eyes turned to him and he took a step back.  “Munson?”  Jonathan asked?  “What are you doing here?”

In all his hurry to get to the Byers’ house he really hadn’t thought of a lie that would explain why he was here.  He’d assumed Eleven would be there and that would be enough.  Hadn’t really thought much further than that.  Whoops.  “Uh, I was looking for my sister?”

The girl in front of him looked at him with a mix of disbelief and annoyance and suddenly he knew her from school, it was Nancy Wheeler.  “Sister?”  She asked a question but her voice stayed flat.  

“Yeah, um, she was wearing a pink dress and has a, um, a shaved head?”

“She’s your sister?”  Nancy asked again.  “I’m pretty sure that girl doesn’t have a brother.”

Eddie grew annoyed, even though both Jonathan and Harrington were turning to him like he’d done something wrong.  He didn’t really like the way they were looking at him, especially with that bat in Harrington’s hands.  “Yeah, she was out at the quarry this afternoon with Mike and Dustin.  I told her to call me this evening for a ride but she hasn’t.  They, uh, said they might come here this evening and I was hoping they were still here.”

“Mike?  And Dustin?  Told you this afternoon they’d be here?”  She emphasized the word this and Eddie wasn’t sure what the hell she was implying but now she was really looking at him like he was a serial killer.  

Eddie was saved by the lights flickering again.  Everyone winced, Harrington brought his bat up.  They watched as the lights lit up one by one through the house and the quartet followed them out of the door.  

“Where’s it going?”  Nancy asked.

“I don’t think it was that thing.”  Jonathan replied.  Eddie knew that it was a great time to get the fuck out of Dodge while everyone was following the lights and being super dramatic.  

“Well, I gotta go!”  Eddie said as he ran towards his van.  Whatever the fuck was happening he wasn’t going to find Eleven this way.  He could go back and try again to find her in the static, even if he risked passing out.  He jumped in his van and rolled down the window as he turned the key in the ignition.  “Great time guys!  Let’s never talk about this again.”  He shouted out the window and backed up all the way to the county road.  

“Wait!”  Nancy shouted after him.  

There was no way that Eddie was going to slow down, let alone stop for her.  He made it home in record time and turned the TV back to channel forty-two.  This time though, no matter how hard he looked he couldn’t find Eleven.  He felt cold dread roll down his spine.  He kept searching until he could feel blood trickling out of his ears.  He pulled himself out of the Void and managed the few steps to his bed before he passed out.

Chapter Text

Eddie didn’t wake up until noon the next day.  He probably would have slept past that, but someone was knocking on the door to his trailer.  His mouth was dry and fuzzy and he felt like he’d drunk a case of beer by himself last night.  He couldn’t remember what the hell happened or why he felt so fucking bad as he pushed himself off his bed.  

The knocking continued.  Right, the door.  It was probably some Jehovah’s Witness’. He’d scare them off, tell them that he worshiped the Devil and throw the horns to have a bit of fun and get them to go away so he could go back to bed.  Then when he was properly rested, he’d grab a glass or five of water and see if he could remember yesterday.  He squinted as he flipped on the overhead lights as the interior of the trailer was dim with all the curtains drawn.

He yanked the door open and shouted down his steps, “what do you want?” to the five missionaries standing there.  Except they weren’t missionaries.  They were the two kids from the quarry, plus the three from the Byers’ house last night.  

Shit. Shit. Shit.  

He ran his hand down his face as everything from last night came back to him.  He wasn’t hung over.  Or at least not on beer.  He’d over extended himself by using his talents yesterday too many times and for too long.  

“Jesus Christ.”  He said out loud.  “Come on in.”  He gestured into his trailer and then walked inside to make room for everyone.  He was so glad Wayne had work on Sundays.  

“What happened to your face?”  One of the kids, Dustin, if he remembered correctly, asked with a slight lisp.  

“What?”  He asked, the only wrecked face he saw right now was Harrington’s.

“You’re kind of covered in blood, dude.”  Speak of the devil and he would reply, apparently.

Eddie touched his face and felt dried blood flaking under his finger tips.  “Uh, make yourselves at home.”  Eddie said and then walked into his bathroom to look at whatever it was the hell they were talking about.  Lo, though, he was actually covered in blood.  It was smeared over his face and neck.  Probably had happened when he was searching for Eleven last night, but he’d passed out before he could clean himself up. 

He grabbed a wash rag from the shower.  God, he hoped Wayne didn’t use the wash rag on his balls.  He stuck his tongue out at himself in the mirror in disgust and decided that Wayne didn’t do anything to this rag at all.  It just happened to be in the shower for no reason.  Eddie rubbed at his face and neck until the only blood left was on his collar.  He’d try to get that out later, but the shirt was black so it wasn’t going to be much of a problem.   

As he made his way back to the living area of the trailer, he saw his three peers sitting hunched over on the couch like little ducks in a row looking decidedly uncomfortable, but the two twerps had somehow found his DnD guides and were getting their grubby kid hands all over them as the sat on the floor, the books laid out on his coffee table.  “Hands off the guides, boys.”  He said, yanking the Monsters Manual out of Dustin’s hands.  

“You play DnD?”  He asked.  Eddie ignored the question as he held out his hand to Mike to get the Player’s Guide back from him.  The kid reluctantly turned it over to him and Eddie turned to his kitchenette and balanced the books on top of the dish rack.  

“You guys want anything to drink?”  He turned to the older kids, “beer?  Water?”  Eddie knew for sure he was going to be drinking a fucking Schlitz to get through whatever discussion he was about to have.  

“Water’s fine.”  Nancy said with what Eddie guessed was supposed to be only a mildly judgy look.  

“I wasn’t going to give beer to the kiddos.”  He said to mollify her.  “But, uh, you guys can have some.  Breakfast of champions.”

Everyone else opted for water, but Mike did whine about it.  Or at least, he whined about being called a kiddo.  Eddie got everyone their glass of water, opened a beer for himself, and leaned against the counter.  “First off, I’m the DM for the school DnD club.”  He said, pointing with the bottom of his can of beer to Dustin and Mike.  

“No way, you guys have a DnD club at the high school?”  Mike said, something a little like admiration in his expression for the first time ever.  Huh.

“News to me,” He heard Harrington say.

“I literally have t-shirts the whole club wears on game day.  The Hellfire Club?”  Eddie said.  

“Oh, is that what those are for?”  he said, but this time with a somewhat contrite wince.  Also, unexpected.  Harrington was an asshole, but this wasn’t exactly asshole behavior.  Still Eddie wasn’t going to let his guard down.

“Secondly, where the hell is my sister?”  Again he directed his question to the two kids.  He took a swig from his beer and put it down on the counter waiting for their excuses. 

“Wait,” Nancy interrupted before Mike could say anything.  “El really was his sister?”  She looked pained as she said it.

Eddie caught her expression first and then backtracked through the sentence.  “Was?  What do you mean, was?”  Eddie asked.  A vice of panic started to grip his ribs again and he forced his breathing to be as smooth as possible.  He could not afford to freak out right now.  Not in front of strangers.  Not after loosening the lock down he’d had on his talents for the last four years.  

Nancy looked up at him with huge eyes, tears pooling in them.  

“Shit,” he heard Jonathan say, but Eddie couldn’t look away from Nancy.

“Where’s Eleven?”  He asked.  “What happened to Eleven?”

“She was fighting the demogorgon.”  Mike began, his voice unexpectedly sad and quiet.

“The monster from last night,”  Nancy added.  “The boys named it after their game.  Your game.”

“It killed a lot of people at the school.”  Dustin said.  “It kept coming for us, attacking us.”  

“She pinned it to the wall.”  Mike said, reached his hand out with fingers splayed like the Lab kids did when they were trying to concentrate and push things.

“And she, like, disintegrated it.”  Dustin continued.

“She said, ‘tell Ten good-bye.’”  Mike said, so quietly Eddie almost didn’t hear it.

“And she disintegrated too.”  Dustin finished.  He was sniffing and tearing up.   

But Eddie couldn’t look at any of them.  A silent wail was growing within him as he thought about her smiling at him at the quarry yesterday.  Her little face was so sweet and perfect, her pink dress so different from her shaved head.  A little mismatched freak, just like him.

“No.”  Eddie said, bending over in half and covering his eyes with his hands, trying to block out the world.  “No, no, no, no, no.”

“Eddie,” someone said but he wasn’t listening to any of them now.  This has to be wrong.  A lie.  To keep her from him. Or they didn’t understand what they saw.  That could happen.  He remembered how strong Eight’s illusions could be.

He felt like he was falling, but it was just his knees giving out as he slid down the cabinets in front of the sink.  He kept chanting no, he really didn’t know what else he could do.  Everything seemed so far away from him except his pain.  

Distantly, he heard Harrington say, “What the fuck? Is that thing back, the demi-thing?”

“It's a demogorgon.”  Dustin corrected him.

“It’s not the demogorgon.”  Mike said at the same time.  “It’s Eddie.  It’s what we were trying to tell you in the car.  He’s like El.”  

That the kids have been spilling his secrets got Eddie out from under the crushing wall of pain for just long enough to shout, “shut up!” and one of the lights overhead popped.  The shards of glass tinkled like a wind chime as they fell.  

Years of training kicked in as Eddie realized he was losing control.  He remembered the painful lessons, electric prods hitting the bare skin of his torso as he tried not to react with his talents.  He took a deep breath in and let it out slowly through his teeth.  He did that five more times, before he stood up and left everyone staring at him in his living room.  He grabbed the shitty carpet sweeper that lived in his closet and cleaned up the mess of broken lightbulb he had made.  

He couldn’t look at anyone when he came back into the living room.  He grabbed his beer from the counter top.  He drank a big sip and wished like hell he could light up, help him get his roiling emotions numbed out and slowed down.  But if Nancy was giving him the stink eye over a beer he couldn’t imagine what would happen if he got high.  He took another two deep breaths and sat down on the carpet next to the two kids, at the head of the coffee table.  

“What the hell happened.  Start from the beginning.”  He said, pointing with his free hand to the group around his coffee table.  Jonathan looked constipated, Nancy looked like she was going to cry, and Steve looked like he was in pain.  Both boys looked sad.  “Please.”  He added.

The boys told their story, from the beginning.  It was chaotic, each of them talking over each other.  Jesus Christ, but his little sister was powerful.  She’d created the gates that had allowed the demogorgon in.  By accident.  He couldn’t begin to imagine how to do that.  The pride he felt at her was like a sharp spike of pain to his heart.  She was powerful.  Past tense.

“Wait, what government guys?”  Eddie asked as the kids got to what happened at the middle school last night.  

Mike told them all about the ‘bad men’ who had shown up after kids had been left alone with Eleven at the middle school.  While he’d been at the Byers’ house.  

“Good.  It’s what they fucking deserve.”  Eddie said after Mike described Eleven giving them all aneurysms.  The teenagers on the couch seemed shocked by what he said, but both Dustin and Mike were nodding.  

“Yeah.”  Dustin added.  Somehow, this kid backing up Eddie’s assessment mollified everyone else.  

Eddie took another swig of beer and gestured for Mike’s story to continue.  The demogorgon had killed Brenner, who Eleven had called Papa.  He knew he smiled like a loon when Mike told that part of the story which he knew would freak everyone out again but fuck everyone here, they’d never understood what that monster had done to all the Lab kids.  

After that there wasn’t much more to their story, just Eleven’s self-sacrifice at the end.  

Nancy and Jonathan went next, adding some missing pieces about Will and the demogorgon.  Harrington apparently hadn’t joined in this little adventure until just a few minutes before Eddie had himself at the Byers’ house. 

He thought it would be one of the kids, or Nancy who asked what his deal was.  He didn’t really want to share with them what hell he’d grown up in and what he’d shared with Eleven.  That was private.  He’d barely even shared any of it with Wayne.  

Except it was Jonathan.  

“What about you?  How do you fit into this?”  He asked.

Eddie couldn’t deny Jonathan, not after his week of hell.  Losing his own brother, even if only for a few days.  Eddie could now sympathize with the level of pain he must have been in all week.  He'd also been dealing with nasty, gutting rumors all week as his little brother was pronounced dead. Rumors that Jonathan had killed his little brother himself or that his mom was going crazy and would be locked up any day.  All the while he had been stalking and killing a monster with Nancy, the only other person in town who believed him.  

He ran his hand through his hair.  “I don’t know if I was born in that Lab or stolen from my parents or what.  My earliest memories are in the Lab.”  He began.  He ran them through the basics.  

There had been probably twenty-five brothers and sisters in the Lab before the massacre, though seven of those were babies or toddlers who didn’t live with the rest of them.  Not old enough to be tattooed yet and given their name, number, and designation that remained for life.  He took off his watch for the second time in as many days.  He showed them his number and reaffirmed that they should never call him Ten, he wouldn’t even acknowledge them if they did.  

It wasn’t his god damned name.  

He told them about the tests, the experiments, the knowledge that they were training to be spies and assassins.  All without anyone teaching them about morals.  If you didn’t know killing was wrong then you didn’t even have to justify it.  Perfect little psychic soldiers.  

Then he got to the massacre.  He could barely remember it. Partially because he’d been knocked out at first and he’d always assumed he’d been left for dead.  How when he’d woken up, there was no one alive remaining.  

Everyone, all his siblings, all the guards, the nurses, the attendants, everyone he knew existed was dead.  How he’d hidden in the basement for two days before he found the tunnel out of the lab.  

How Wayne had found him a few days later in the woods behind the trailer park, starving and weak.  How Wayne’s nephew had been missing for months.  His brother, in jail, his sister-in-law dead of an overdose.  How Wayne had claimed this kid as his missing nephew who had walked from Martinsville to find his Uncle after his mother’s overdose.  How Ten had become Norman Edward “Eddie” Munson - a twelve year old boy in early 1979.  The Morgan County Family Services had been so over the moon to have the missing child’s case resolved and a new home placement taken care of that they never looked too closely at the details.  

Then he got to yesterday.  How he’d recognized her immediately.  She looked just the same as she had when she was probably seven, those last days he remembered from the lab when she finally started beating Two at his own games.  Coming into the power she apparently had always had inside her.  

At that point it became too much, the feeling of seeing her again, finding her alive, just to lose her again within hours pushed him down under water.  “Fuck,” he finished his monologue, wiping at his tears and slammed his beer can down on the coffee table in front of him.  “Fuck.”  He said again.

He lost time, drifting in a haze of raw grief.  Every time he surfaced he saw all five of them were still there.  Taking turns watching him, moving around his trailer.  The kids were not even hiding that they were reading his DnD guides.  At one point Harrington took a nap on the couch.  All the while Eddie sat on the floor curled around himself.  He finally started to come back as hunger crawled in his belly.  It was dark outside and Harrington was asking him something.  “What’s the address here?  I’m getting pizza.”  

Eddie blinked a few times.  He told him the address plus the directions that were always necessary to add for every pizza delivery to the trailer park.   Otherwise the driver would “get lost” and the pizza would never arrive.  

The pizza came and a few slices were stuffed into Eddie’s hands.  He ate them without thinking.  At some point Wayne came home and there was whispering as Nancy and Harrington told Wayne some bullshit about why they were there. He knew Wayne didn't believe it, but he also knew without more information he would wait for Eddie to fill him in.  So Wayne shrugged and grabbed a few slices for himself before disappearing into his own room for the evening.  

At some point, Jonathan sat down on the coffee table in front of Eddie and asked, “what do you need to get ready for school tomorrow.”

Eddie scoffed.  “I’m not fucking going to school tomorrow.”  

He knew everyone was looking between each other over his head, but he couldn’t care.  “Okay, then what’s your schedule so we can grab your homework for you?  Can your uncle call out for you?”

“Why are you doing this?  Why are you being so nice?”  Eddie asked, hating that he said it as it came out of his mouth.  Something so raw and blunt.

“Because you don’t deserve this.  Because El was a hero and her brother deserves help.”  Jonathan said.  He sounded more confident than Eddie had ever heard him before.  

Eddie thought that this was a guy who thought his little brother was dead for over a week.  There had been a body and funeral for the kid and everything.  He had all the reason in the world to wrap himself up in his own pain and not pay any attention to Eddie at all.  Instead he was helping.

Eddie ground the heel of his palms into his eyes.  “Okay, okay, fuck.  Does anyone have a pen?”  

Nancy dug through her purse and managed to find a pen and notebook.  Eddie wrote down his schedule and promised everyone he’d have Wayne call him out sick the next day.  

At some point they all left, Eddie was still having a hard time keeping track of time, but before he went to bed that night he did notice the trailer was cleaner than he’d ever seen it, tidied and clean.  Leftover pizza was wrapped in foil and stacked in his fridge.  

He left a note for Wayne saying he felt gross and could Wayne call out sick for him tomorrow before he passed out again for the second time in two nights in his clothes from Saturday. 

Chapter Text

Eddie did stay home the next day.  He didn’t really skip days, he was more interested in selectively attending whatever classes he wanted when he wanted than missing whole days.  Not that Wayne really knew about his attendance issues; they’d never kept Eddie from barely passing each grade so far, so he wasn’t worried this year either.  For Wayne, this meant that Eddie’s behavior was notable.  He probably was also a little weirded out by Nancy Wheeler and Steve Harrington dropping off his homework and classwork that night.  

“Those kids were here yesterday, weren’t they?”  Wayne asked Monday night.

“Yeah, um, Nancy and Steve from school.  They knew I wasn’t feeling well and Nancy’s a bit of a priss about homework.  She told me she’d pick up my homework and stuff so I didn’t fall behind.”

Wayne looked at him, but Eddie had no energy to give to deciphering what the hell it might mean.  “That’s awful nice of her.”

“Yeah.  Look, I’m still not feeling great, can you call out again?  I already asked Nancy to pick up the work for tomorrow.”

Wayne shrugged and said, “sure thing.”

The next day Eddie still felt like the world was fuzzy and far away but navigable until he would remember Eleven and the grief would crash down on him again.  He spent the whole day wandering around the trailer, TV tuned to soaps and game shows all morning until the noise made him want to punch the screen.  

Then he tried to listen to some music.  He picked up each tape he had, thinking about listening to each one.   Thinking about his favorite songs on the tape.  Then he would think, what if I associate that song with her forever?  Part of him wanted one song he could dedicate to her and trap his grief in it.  A larger, more selfish part of him didn’t want this feeling to ruin any song or any band for him.  

The worst part was he couldn’t figure out why he was so sad.  

It wasn’t like he knew her.  The lab hadn’t ever wanted any of them to be truly attached to the others.  As far as Eddie could figure, after he got out and saw what real families looked like, they were at best a parody of one.  Using each child’s desperate need for love against each other to win Papa’s favor.  If anything Eddie should feel maybe glad she’s gone.  So that she couldn’t steal his love and affection from Wayne but the thought made Eddie nauseous with guilt.  He knew Wayne could never love him less and that he would have found space in his heart for Eleven.  If there was one thing Wayne had taught him since he took him in, was that love was elastic and could grow to encompass everyone you wanted it to.  

Maybe that was why he felt like crap.  

There had been potential with Eleven.  Potential for a real little sister. Potential for Wayne to love another kid right.  Potential for her to grow up and be even better than Eddie could imagine.  That potential was robbed from her, from him, from Wayne.  From all her little friends too.  

For the rest of the second afternoon Eddie sobbed until he ran dry.  He had no idea how he looked to Harrington and Nancy that evening, but he didn’t even have to ask them to pick up the homework for the next day.  Standing behind Nancy, Harrington had offered it right up.  Dully, Eddie noted his face was looking better, some of the bruises already fading to yellow.  

Before he could close the door in their faces, Nancy said, “Will woke up at the hospital.  We’re all going over there after dinner.  You could, I mean, we could pick you up if you’d like.”

Eddie wasn’t sure why she was asking him to come along.  He didn’t know the kid, and hadn't really helped find him.

“Thanks, Wheeler,” he said, because his uncle taught him to be polite to ladies and it kicked in even when he was exhausted. “But I think the local metalhead freak showing up to sit at a little kid's sick bed would be a bit weird.  Even for me.”  He paused and took in a big breath.  “But, uh, say hi to the brats for me.  And thanks again for the homework.”

When Wayne came home that night, Eddie was eating a mostly warm Stouffer’s beef stroganoff and watching Remington Steele while leafing through his homework.  Maybe he’d be bored enough tomorrow to actually do some.  

“There another one in the freezer for me?”  Wayne asked after he’d changed out of his work clothes.

“Yup, oven’s still warm too.”  Eddie said.

Wayne peeled off the cardboard around the tinfoil package, cut a slit in the top, and put it in the oven, turning the knob to turn it back on.  “Are you going to tell me what’s up?”

The thing was Eddie wanted to.  He actually knew that he owed it to Wayne to tell him, considering that now other people knew their secret.  It put Eddie’s life in danger but it also put Wayne’s life in danger.  Jonathan had told him on Sunday how Benny hadn’t committed suicide, just had the unfortunate luck to run into Eleven and the people chasing her.  

He tried to say something.  He opened his mouth to speak, but how could he admit that he betrayed Wayne like that?  And for nothing, because the sister he could have added to the family was gone.   

“No.  Not tonight.”

Wayne sighed but sat down on the couch next to him with a beer in hand while he waited for his meal to heat up.  

“Can you call me in sick again?”  Eddie asked.

Wayne turned towards him, away from the TV.  He stared hard at Eddie, but Eddie didn’t look away from the show.  “Alright,” he said finally.  

The next day Eddie slept in again, after two restless nights, he was exhausted.  He didn’t turn on the TV today, and couldn't stomach the noise of game shows and soap operas.  Instead, he grabbed some of Wayne’s albums and put them on the portable turntable Wayne kept under his bed.  He put on some of the music he remembered Wayne listening to in the first months after finding Eddie wandering around.  Woodie Guthrie, Bob Dylan, and Odetta.  Little Eddie had been so enamored with Woodie Guthrie he’d even painted an homage to his “This Machine Kills Fascists'' on his first guitar, an acoustic Wayne had found at a pawn shop.  It had been his first ever birthday present for his first ever birthday. Norman’s thirteenth birthday, June of 1979.  Wayne had taught him a few chords and gotten him The Big Book of Folk Chords to help teach himself songs.  

He wondered if Eleven would have liked making music or if she would have liked the same fantasy novels Eddie did.  Or maybe she’d find something uniquely her own like Eddie’s love for metal.  Hell, Eddie would have even tolerated her falling in love with Michael Jackson or something else unholy just to have his sister get to discover what she liked as her own person out in the world.  

Eddie started to sob again, for the first time today.  Unlike yesterday it didn’t feel like it wouldn’t end, it just felt like he had to let it go and get it out of him.  It wasn’t like the hollow ache in his heart was getting better but it felt different than yesterday.

The second side of Dust Bowl Ballads ended and Eddie wiped at his tears.  He flipped it back over and looked at the coffee table in front of him with his homework scattered all over it.  He knew he was fucking sad as shit when he thought, might as well get this done.  

He didn’t feel better by the time Nancy and Harrington showed up again.  He grabbed his homework from Nancy.  “Uh, how was Will?  Is he okay?”

“Joyce said, he’s doing much better.  Mike said he would cough hard whenever he got too excited, but all the boys hung out for thirty minutes or so last night, so it can’t be that bad.”  Nancy said.

“That’s good.  I’m glad to hear it.”

“Do you want us to pick up more homework for you tomorrow?”  Harrington asked.  

Eddie had a hard time not being suspicious of Steve, he really did.  Dude kept helping out at each turn and it threw Eddie for a loop.  

“Actually, no.  I can’t skip school forever.”  He hadn’t realized it until he said it, but he was going back tomorrow.

“Alright, then.  I guess we’ll see you there.”  Harrington said.

Eddie kept himself from rolling his eyes.  Barely.  Like hell they were going to even acknowledge him in school the next day.  He could see them being privately kind, like this, far away from everyone else in the high school, but in the hallways?  No way.  “Sure, yeah, tomorrow.”  Eddie said instead. 

That night Wayne came home as Eddie was watching Night Court .

“You going to need me to call again tomorrow?”  he asked.  

“No, I think I’m okay to go to school again.”  Eddie said.

“Okay, good.”  Wayne said.  “Can you tell me what this has been about now?  You’re not sick Eddie, when you’re sick you’re like a little kid.”

“What’s that supposed to mean?”  

“It means you never stop whining, barely get out of bed, and ask me to make you chicken noodle soup for dinner.”

Eddie did accept that he was a whiny baby when he was sick.  Mostly, because he hadn’t been allowed to be one when he was in the Lab and sometimes it was nice to be taken care of a little bit.  

Eddie took a deep breath in and stood up.  He turned off Night Court and started to pace the open living space.  “Okay. Okay.  Sure.”  He started.  “You know how I told you I had a bunch of brothers and sisters in the lab?”

“Yeah,”  Wayne said.  “You also said they weren’t real brothers or sisters, like classmates more than family.”

“True, true.  I also said they were all dead.”  Eddie said.  “But on Saturday I was hanging out at the quarry and I saw a few kids playing.  They were all middle schoolers, something like that.  One of them, a girl, had a shaved head.”  Wayne’s eyebrows went up.  “I, uh, recognized her immediately.”

“Shit.”  

“Shit is right.

“Tell me you didn’t do anything stupid.”

“Oh, I did a bunch of stupid things, Wayne.”  Eddie admitted.  “She was right there, I thought they were all dead!”  Wayne pinched the bridge of his nose but kept listening as Eddie went on to explain what happened at the quarry.  Then what happened that night.  

“A monster?”  

“Yeah, apparently Eleven can rip holes in between dimensions?”

“Is that something you can do?”  Wayne asked, eyes wide in alarm.

“Uh, no way.”  Eddie said.  Then he went on to explain Sunday and more importantly that Eleven was dead.  That the government didn’t know about him, at least according to the kids who would have been the only ones who knew about him to tell anyone official.

“She’s dead?”  Wayne asked as he stood up.  Eddie nodded, he felt tears threatening again.  “God damn it, kid, come here.”  Wayne wrapped his arms around him as Eddie broke down in sobs for the second time that day.  “You didn’t have to take this on alone.”

Through his tears, Eddie tried to say, “I didn’t want you to think I was an idiot for exposing myself like that.”

“That could never happen.  I already know you’re an idiot.”  Eddie laughed at Wayne’s dumb joke. “You sure you want to go to school tomorrow?”

“I wouldn’t say want.”  Eddie said.  “But I’m sad, bored and lonely here in the day. At least at school I’ll be sad and bored around people.”

“Fine, but, I’ll give you a ride tomorrow before work.  I don’t want you taking the bus tomorrow.  Okay?”

“Sure, thing.”  Eddie shrugged.

That night he packed his homework in his bag.  Most of it was done and he could do a bit more in class tomorrow so that if Wheeler did actually talk to him he could honestly say he didn’t fuck up her help.  He didn’t sleep well that night or anything, still felt like shit when he did wake up, but Wayne dropping him off made the start of the day suck a bit less. 

Chapter Text

Wayne had to get to the plant well before Eddie would normally even wake up.  Not that Eddie frequently woke up in time to get to school before first period.  Sadly, that meant Eddie was super early when Wayne dropped him off and it was pissing rain outside.  He decided to go to the library, which was open starting at 7, and provided him with a quiet place to be alone.  

He hadn’t touched his DnD campaign prep notes since Saturday at the quarry, so he thought now would be as good a time as any to get started on them again.  He had to get them back to a tavern so they could meet up with Gareth’s new character, and now they’d need at least one lower level encounter to help build that character up before he raked the party over the coals for the end of the semester.  He’d have to meet up with Gareth during his free period sometime this week to see what character he’d made.  Maybe this time he wouldn’t play a damn Barbarian again and give the group the Cleric they desperately needed.  

Turned out Eddie was right in assuming school would keep him from wallowing in his sadness, but it didn’t mean it was anything close to a good day either.  The moment he got bored or his mind wandered in any of his classes he would feel the blank gray fog of grief cover him like a shroud.  In a last ditch attempt to not cry in his second period English class he had to actually pay attention.  It was hell.

The first sign that something was weird at school was during the passing period between third and fourth period.  Nancy was walking in the opposite direction as him to wherever her next class was.  He’d never really noticed her before, she was just one of the many people crammed in the hallway trying to get to a locker or to their next class.  As she passed him, she waved and said, “Hi, Eddie, good to see you back.”

He was so surprised he stopped in the hallway, and was promptly slammed into by the couple who had been walking behind him.  He stared after Nancy not saying anything.  It was one thing, he knew, to help him like she’d been doing the last few days, but this was weird right?  Talking in school was weird.

“Move, Freak.”  The asshole who had bumped into him said.  That he knew how to respond to, so he stuck out his tongue, and threw up some goblin horns at them.  That caused the girl hanging off the asshole's arm to giggle and the asshole to scowl.   

Still confused by Nancy’s greeting, he let himself be pushed by the crowd towards his fourth period chemistry class.  Mrs. O’Donnell had it out for him, and he was almost glad he had done all the homework Nancy had collected for him as he walked into the class.  She was surprised he had an absence slip for her to sign as well as homework to turn in.  She still looked at him like he was a piece of trailer trash dog shit she’d stepped in, but hell, he could use any points he could get towards a passing grade in this stupid class.  

After fourth period was lunch, which Eddie had to admit he was looking forward to.  The whole point of going to school today was to not be alone with his thoughts and that hadn’t happened enough.  However, the idea of stuffing his face and hanging out with his friends sounded good.  Really good.  Then after school he’d have band practice with the newly reformed Corroded Coffin, now featuring Jeff and Gareth after Donnie and Rick had graduated last year and fled Hawkins.  He grabbed a chair from along the wall and sat down in his normal place at the head of the table.  Jeff was already there with Chris and David, Eddie’s fellow seniors.  Gareth was probably still in line for a hot lunch.  

Out of the corner of his eye he saw Nancy and Harrington wander towards their usual table.  For a hot moment he was worried they might head over here, but they didn’t and all was right with the world.  Eddie was startled from his thoughts as someone sat down next to him at the table.  “Hey, Eddie.”  

Eddie looked, expecting one of his normal friends but instead it was Jonathan.  “Hey, Byers.”  He said, and looked over to his other friends who looked just as confused as he felt.  

“It’s not a problem if I sit here, right?”  Jonathan asked.  

“No, no of course not.  All Freaks are welcome in this kingdom.”  He said, squashing down his confusion, as he stood up and bowed towards Jonathan.  And Byers was a freak, more of a loner than a fantasy nerd, but still, Eddie wanted his table to be inclusive of anyone who wanted to sit with his band of merry weirdos.

“I heard they found your brother.”  Jeff said. “I’m really glad.”

Jonathan looked down at his lunch, but said, “Thanks.  He’s still at the hospital, but we’re picking him up when my Mom gets off work today.”

“Hey, that’s great.”  Eddie said and really meant it.  He realized he had no idea if he’d said as much to Jonathan on Sunday.  The whole day was hard to pin down.  

“The kids missed you at the hospital the other day.  They’d wanted to introduce you to Will.”  Jonathan added. 

“I doubt that Mike missed me.”  Eddie said.

At the same time, David asked.  “I didn’t know you guys even knew each other?”

Jonathan smiled again and this time Eddie could see the laugh behind his eyes, a shared secret.  “Eddie ended up helping out a bit with the search over the weekend.”

Chris said, “Wow, that doesn’t sound like Eddie at all.”  

“Hey, I resemble that remark.”  Eddie said and laughed.  “Any help I gave was purely useless, trust me.”  And he stared hard at Jonathan willing him to shut up.

“Every little bit helped find Will.”  Jonathan said.  “Come by whenever, say hi.  I bet Will would love it.”

“Uh, sure.”  Eddie said with absolutely no intention of following through on that invitation. This was weird and it was seriously making Eddie wonder if he could revoke Jonathan’s welcome to the freak table.

Jonathan turned silent as the rest of the table joined them, but he didn’t leave.  He was there Friday too, the sole member not also wearing a Hellfire Club t-shirt.  Eddie was almost afraid he’d turn up to their game after school but at least that went normally.  It wasn’t a great game, Eddie tried to be present, but this week had sucked and his mind kept wandering.  However, Gareth’s new character, named Gareth the Great, was introduced to the group and they had finished at least one short dungeon crawl which had some nice treasure to hand out at the end, so most of the guys were okay if he wasn’t as theatrical as he normally was.  

The weekend sucked.  Even if it hadn’t kept raining, the quarry was no longer a place that felt safe to him, and all he had to do was be alone with his thoughts.  Sunday was the hardest since Wayne was back at work and the trailer was silent and lonely.  Eddie was actually looking forward to school by the end of the day.

Jonathan was back at the table for lunch on Monday and every day after that.  A new permanent addition to the table, Eddie guessed.  Nancy still waved to him between third and fourth period in the hallways.  Hell, at this point he waved back without a thought, even looked for her during the passing period.  The only one of the trio from that night nearly two weeks ago who hadn’t started to act weirdly was Steve.  Small fucking mercies that something was still normal in his life now.

Chapter Text

Even as Jonathan and Nancy continued to freak Eddie out by acting friendly at every turn, Steve was nowhere to be found in Eddie’s school life which was fine by him.  He didn’t need more weirdness in his life at the moment.  

Nancy and Jonathan being friendly made his skin crawl with anxiety that the wrong people might be paying attention to him.  It was too much change, too soon after Eleven came into his life.  He knew it was crazy.  He knew that was beyond paranoid.  Don’t use his powers so you don’t show up on the evil government radar, that made sense.  Don’t be friendly with new people was probably not on the government’s watch list of suspicious behavior.  

Otherwise shit was good.  Jonathan didn’t really speak during lunch, but he didn’t speak to anyone at school as far as Eddie could tell.  The assholes in Hellfire hadn’t fucked up again and were on track to actually completing their campaign with no more dramatic deaths, though he thought it might be good if David’s Druid died just because he was starting to annoy Eddie.  Thanksgiving was later this week and while he and Wayne didn’t really do anything for it, getting two days off school without having to ditch class was always bliss.  

Eddie was deep in thought at his locker before heading to fifth period.  If he got through fifth, he could probably ditch sixth today, since that was his free period and no one paid attention to that.  If he did ditch, what would he need to take home with him?  He didn’t feel like doing chemistry or math homework tonight, so he’d leave those books here, but his English class was reading Oedipus and Antigone.  They were super fucked up stories, and Eddie was getting a kick out of them so he’d bring Antigone home with him and read some of that, maybe act out a few scenes while stoned for shits and giggles.   He was zipping up his bag when someone knocked into him from behind, hard, slamming him into the lockers.  

Well, shit, it had been awhile since anyone had fucked with Eddie Munson.  He wasn’t exactly looking forward to whatever the hell was going on, but at least at this point in his life he knew how to fight back.  Whatever dick decided he was easy pickings was going to have a shit end to his day.  

He turned around and found Tommy H of all people glaring at him.  His girlfriend Carol off to the side, chewing gum and looking bored by her boyfriend’s antics.  “Can I help you?”  Eddie asked.  Tommy was on the swim team, but he wasn’t one of the usual power jocks who like to stuff nerds into lockers or start fights they finished with the help of their teammates .  Eddie tried to think what the hell Tommy might want with him, what he could have possibly done to earn his ire.  

“You protecting Jonathan now, you fucking faggot?”  Tommy spit out.  Okay, queer bashing, this Eddie at least understood, though he had no idea what Jonathan had to do with it.  Did people think something was up between them since he started hanging out at the freak table?  

Eddie hadn’t been quiet enough about his attraction to people not gender his first semester in eighth grade.  He’d learned very quickly he shouldn’t ever talk about that, either out loud or through actions, but not quickly enough.  It came with the territory of being a kid raised to be a psychic weapon with no consideration for any social skills.  It did mean that he spent the next few years getting very good at fighting.  By the end of sophomore year, he’d hit a growth spurt and packed on a bit of muscle.  Not to mention started wearing his rings.  He could finally get in a good wallop or two himself, which slowed down the fights considerably as bullies moved on to easier targets.  

“A classic opening line,”  Eddie said, leaning against the lockers behind him, and crossed his arms.  Bullies looking for a fight hated it when he met them with boredom.  “Sadly, points will be deducted for lack of originality.” 

Now most violent bullies, the ones who were still willing to fight Eddie after he earned his reputation as a fighter in high school, weren't the kind that had complex motives.  They usually just wanted someone to beat up, or Eddie sometimes thought, someone who would kick their ass.   Tommy however was not that guy.  He was the kind of guy that wanted easy pickings who wouldn’t fight back.  Not people like Eddie.

“I see you talking to that slut Wheeler in the halls, keeping Jonathan safe at your table.”  Tommy said, hopping from foot to foot like he’d watched Rocky too many times and understood the look but not the why of boxing.  

Eddie was confused, what the hell was happening in the rumor mill at this school?  What kind of rumors were going around, was he what a third wheel to a love triangle?  Wasn’t Nancy dating Harrington?  “I’m sorry, I’m actually confused here.  What am I being accused of again?”  

“You know what the fuck you’re doing!”  Tommy shouted and Eddie was starting to understand that while he was very confused about what was going on and why the hell this was happening, Tommy was actually very angry at him.  

At the same time, Harrington shouted from down the hallway, “What the fuck are you doing, dickwad?”  Which distracted Eddie long enough for Tommy to get a punch in, against his undefended right cheek, knocking him back into the lockers.  Fuck that hurt, but it was also good, in a way, because now that the first punch had been thrown Eddie would only be fighting back not instigating the fight.  Not that it mattered to the administration, but it mattered to him that he wasn’t the one starting it.  

He had to hope that Harrington wasn’t going to round on him next too quickly, so that Eddie could finish off Tommy as quickly as possible.  He really hated fighting two people at once, no matter how skilled Eddie was, two on one never went in Eddie’s favor.

Before Eddie could raise his fist up, Harrington was skidding to a stop between them, his back to Eddie.  “What the fuck are you doing?”  He asked.

“Now you’re defending the Freak?  What’s wrong with you?”  Tommy asked.

Eddie, privately, agreed with that.  What the hell was going on here?  Why was Harrington seemingly taking his side and not his best friend’s?  They were usually inseparable.  They’d been working their way up the asshole food chain together their whole time in high school.  

“Yeah, I’m actively trying not to be an dick to people who don’t deserve it.”  Harrington said.  “What the fuck is wrong with you?”

“This faggot is protecting Jonathan at lunch.”  

“Um, he’s literally just sitting with me and my friends.”  Eddie said around Harrington who was still blocking Eddie from destroying Tommy H’s face.  “I mean, now I’m protecting him since I realize there’s something going on, but literally before this he was just sitting with us.”

“Could you shut up?”  Harrington asked him directly.

“I mean, probably?  But will I?”  Eddie grinned at Tommy, the manic one that usually scared all but the most aggressive bullies.  

Tommy being the asshole he was, used Eddie’s banter as a distraction again, this time sucker punching Harrington in the gut.  However, that was all Eddie needed time wise to step around Harrington who was now bent over clutching his stomach, and punch Tommy in the gut, then swing up with a quick uppercut as Tommy was bending in half from the pain of the first blow. 

Eddie was fully prepared to continue his beat down, but Tommy was down from just those two hits, laid out on the floor of the hallway.  Carol dropped down to cradle his head and coo at him.  Eddie wasn’t surprised Tommy wasn’t getting up, just kind of disappointed.  The adrenaline of the fight still flowing through his body with nowhere to go, left him feeling hollow even in his victory.  It was only then that Eddie even registered the small crowd that had formed around the trio and their fight.

Which is, of course, when Mr. Cartwright came down the hall telling them to break it up.  With Harrington still bent in half and Carol on the floor cradling Tommy’s head it looked very bad for Eddie.  “Munson, with me now, to the office.”

He gave a perfunctory, “but I didn’t start anything.”  Knowing full well no one in the vice principals office would believe him for a moment with the scene surrounding him now.  He had to try at least.  Get it on record or something.  

“He’s right Mr. Cartwright,”  Harrington backed him up, still half bent over.  Eddie knew he looked surprised as hell, and he probably should rein in his expressions to at least sullen disinterest but frankly he was too shocked to do anything else.  “Tommy sucker punched him against the locker and when I tried to step between them and stop it, Tommy punched me in the gut.  Eddie only punched him after Tommy hit both of us.”

Because Harrington was the one doing the backing up, a few other gawkers to the affair stepped forward and confirmed what happened.  Eddie wasn’t used to anyone picking his side after the fact.  Traditionally, he was the fall guy if he got caught, no matter who was there or what happened.  “Alright, then.”  Cartwright said, looking sick that he couldn’t just drag Eddie into the office and instead had to drag some of the darlings of the student body in there as well.  “Tommy, Steve, Munson, with me.”  Carol tried to follow along with Tommy but Cartwright told her to get to class.  

The whole time the three of them were in the vice principals office together, Harrington backed him up.  He even provided the back story Eddie had been so desperately missing from his conversation with Tommy at the lockers.  

Steve had been angry at Nancy for hanging out with Jonathan a few weeks ago and the three of them had vandalized the theater marquee.  Apparently, Nancy had been comforting Jonathan about his brother, her little brother’s best friend, and Jonathan had been comforting Nancy about Barb who was also missing.  Steve had realized he’d been an asshole and apologized to Nancy, Jonathan, and the theater owner - including scrubbing the marquee down the next day until it was clean.  Tommy H. had been furious with Steve’s about face, but was taking it out on Jonathan and now on Eddie who was just nice enough to hang out with Jonathan at lunch.  Steve laid on the explanation with a thick helping of guilt as he willingly humiliated himself by making himself look like one of the bad guys in this little affair. 

Eddie decided to put a pin in that information.  If Barbara went missing around the same time as Will, did that mean it was related to the Upside Down?  It didn’t sound like she’d been found, was it something he could help with?  

Oblivious to Eddie’s thoughts, Harrington continued. He talked about how Eddie actually seemed to be a nice guy helping out Jonathan and was actually going to lead a DnD campaign for Will and his friends once he was out of the hospital.  Which was news to Eddie, but he wasn’t an idiot so he nodded along.  

The more Harrington talked, the worse Tommy looked and the more heroic Eddie looked.  It was a very weird feeling.  Normally, even when he was in the right, he wasn’t the good guy.  

“Thank you, Steve.”  Vice Principal Morita said.  “In light of the circumstances today, I’d like all of you to attend detention after school today, but I don’t think there will be any suspensions.  As long as this doesn’t happen again.”

Steve went to object, probably mad that he’d have to serve detention when he tried to deescalate the situation or something so Eddie glared at him to get him to shut up.  Rich kids didn’t even know when they were getting off easy.  Tommy was apparently also that kid because he did complain.

“Mr. Hagan, I can turn your detention into a week-long suspension starting the Monday after the holiday if you would like.”  That shut Tommy up quickly.  “Now, speak to Mrs. Jones at the front desk for late slips and get to class.”

With detention today, it wasn’t worth skipping sixth and seventh periods, so with great reluctance, Eddie stayed in school for the rest of the day.

+++

Detention was boring, but Eddie used the time to actually do his homework since he had literally nothing better to do.  Even his campaign notes and map were done for next Friday, since Hellfire skipped Thanksgiving Friday.  What a waste of a perfectly good hour he could have been practicing his guitar or getting high.  

Afterwards, Harrington stuck around.  “Hey do you need a ride?  Since the bus already left?”  

Eddie hadn’t been looking forward to walking home.  “Sure, actually.  I guess you already know where I live?”  Which was weird, but weirdness had been Eddie’s world for the last few weeks, at this point he was starting to get used to it.

As soon as they got in the car Harrington stared Eddie down until he put on his seat belt then he said.  “Look, I’m really sorry that Tommy dragged you into this.  I’m not sure what the fuck is going through his mind these days.”

Eddie’s eyebrows raised up to his hairline.  “You’re not sure what he’s thinking?”  Eddie asked.

“Uh, yeah, like his beef with me is one thing but bringing you into it is next level.”  

“I’m just going to go out on a limb here, but maybe it’s because you, Nancy, and Jonathan have all been acting weird for a few weeks now.”

Steve grimaced.

“Like I get that there are extenuating circumstances because of Will’s disappearance, and uh, the Upside Down stuff.”  Eddie winced.  This shit was so weird to talk about outloud even if he had talked about it with Steve in that fugue state after they’d let him know that Eleven had died, but that was different.  That was in a haze through deep grief.  And frankly, their stories were just as bizarre if shorter than Eddie’s lifelong saga of weird.  Talking about it while sitting in a car driving home from school made it feel like he was talking about his game and not real life.  “But no one else knows about that, and like, even though I know why, I think it’s bizarre when you guys are nice to me.  I can’t imagine what other people think.”

“Being nice to you is the weird thing in all of this?”  Steve asked for clarification.

“Uh, yeah.”  Eddie said.  “Like I’m surprised it took two weeks to get to the point where someone was threatening me with physical violence.  Did I think it was going to be Tommy?  No.  Did I think something was going to snap, oh hell yes.  Honestly, I thought it was going to be Dan. Football Dan,”  Eddie added for clarification since there were like five Dan’s in senior year alone, “who can barely comprehend social status at this school let alone change and really seems to like to get beaten up by me.”  Homoerotically, Eddie meant that Dan seemed to like it homoerotically.  Harrington, however, didn’t pick up on that.    

“He does like to pick a fight.”  Steve glanced his way, as he turned the car onto the main thoroughfare out of town towards the Forest Hills Trailer Park.  

“Anyway, it was just a matter of time.  I’m glad that if it had to happen during school, I got out of it with a detention.”

“That was so unfair.”  Steve said.  “Tommy should have gotten suspended and you shouldn’t have gotten anything.”

“Well, that’s sweet of you to say.”  Eddie said.  He realized he was about a half step away from flirting with Harrington, but pulled back at the last moment.  “But this was probably the best outcome I could have gotten, so thanks for coming to Gondor’s aid.”  Steve glanced over at him, confused.  “Don’t worry about it, nerd reference.  Oh, speaking of which.  I’m DMing for the shortstacks?  Since when?”

“Is DMing a term in that game?”  

“It sure is.”

“Well, you’re not.  Yet.  Nancy told me Mike is trying to get the guts up to call you and ask about it.  Something over winter break.  So maybe act surprised if he does actually call?”

“Sure, sure.”  Eddie said.  Still confused.  Why exactly would the kids want him to DM?  Weren’t they already playing a game?  He swore they both talked about it to him that Sunday.  Not that he’d responded much, but that hadn’t stopped either one from prattling on about it.  

Steve drove him down the shitty, half paved private driveway that counted as roads through the trailer park.  He’d obviously done this enough as he was already avoiding the potholes, and weaving around some of the deeper gouges in cement.  “Here you are.”

“Thanks for the ride, Harrington.”  Eddie said, opening the door.  He was halfway out, before he turned around.  “Let me know if you want any advice on how to fight, yeah?  Like, let’s keep your pretty face from another black eye.”  

“Fuck you too, Munson.”  Harrington said, but he laughed as he said it, and considering how his life had been going in the last few weeks, he was sure that before the new year, Steve would be calling him up asking for lessons on how to not get his ass handed to him in a fight.  

Chapter Text

Thanksgiving weekend was good.  He and Wayne kept tradition and had eaten their yearly turkey TV dinner.  Wayne even went above and beyond getting a box of Stovetop Stuffing, Eddie’s favorite side which demanded extras for the day, and a sweet potato pie for dessert. They’d made a third dinner, for Eleven, seated her place, in memory, next to Eddie at the head of their coffee table, where he thought she would have sat on the floor and kicked his feet throughout dinner. Eddie had finished off the stuffing from the box that night, but had eaten the pie for breakfast for the rest of the long weekend.   Wayne had Friday off, but worked Saturday to make up hours from the holiday on Thursday.  

What time Eddie did have free, he spent smoking and noodling around on his guitar trying to figure out the arrangement for Flight of Icarus .  Everyone in the band was in agreement that it would be the next cover to learn.  Once they had six covers alongside their three original songs, they had enough material for two set lists, so they could rotate weeks at the Hideaway on amateur night.  It wasn’t much, but it was a potentially regular gig and if they were ever going to try to make it as musicians they needed to start performing for more than Jeff’s neighbors.   

Corroded Coffin still had practice on Sunday and he was only fifteen minutes late to it.  Hell, that meant that everyone but Jeff was there after him and Eddie felt a little pride at that.  Especially when Mrs. William’s brought out hot chocolate for the both of them, spiked with a bit of creme de menthe.  “It’s a treat,” She had said, “to get everyone in the holiday spirit.”

Jeff rolled his eyes at his mother’s back as she left.  “If it wasn’t for band practice, I was going to spend the whole day hanging up lights.  I hate getting up on that ladder every year just to take it all down in January.  It’s dumb.”

“Sounds like a pain in the ass.”  Eddie agreed out loud, but he kind of wished that maybe Wayne and him could have more traditions for the holidays.  Maybe not stringing lights up, that sounded like it sucked, but a tree or something might be nice.  For years Eddie hadn’t even understood what Christmas was.  Honestly, the religious part of it still eluded him, but it was only after his second Christmas with Wayne that he’d asked why they didn’t hang lights or get a tree.  

Wayne had shrugged and said, “I’m not really in the habit of celebrating much.”  He had looked at Eddie after that though.  “Do you want to celebrate?  We can get a tree.  We can do presents.”

Eddie had wanted to, if only to fit in with what everyone else around them was doing.  That had been in Freshman year, when he’d been so tired of being the odd man out in every social interaction at school that he’d started to flirt with the idea of conformity before he had decided to fly his freak flag high and camouflage himself behind his own brand of metalhead nerd.  However, thinking about the presents he saw on TV, all so expensive, made him pull back from saying yes.  Wayne already worked so hard to take care of them both, the idea of adding anything more for him to do was wrong.

That didn’t stop Eddie, the next Christmas, from making Wayne a mix tape of his favorite songs.  They were all still on record and with the tape he could listen to his music on his way to and from work.  He’d used David’s parents sound system, which had hi-def dubbing, and was so cool.  He didn’t have the money to purchase the tapes and had shoplifted them, but Wayne didn’t ever need to find that out.  As far as Eddie knew, Wayne still listened to that mixtape.  Last year, both of them had exchanged small gifts, trinkets really, but it was good.  It was a good tradition, Eddie knew, one they were building themselves as a family, but this time of year really made it hard for Eddie to forget that his childhood was far from normal.  

+++

One thing that had been haunting him over the long weekend, aside from the looming specter of holiday cheer, was something Steve had said in Vice-Principal Morita’s office on Wednesday.  That Barbara, Nancy’s friend, had gone missing around the same time as Will.  Will, obviously, had been found but he’d not heard anything about Barbara. 

Since everyone had been weird and were reaching out to him after their little adventures in early November, he decided he would flip the script and offer his help to Nancy. 

That turned out to be harder than he thought.  He did still see her in the hallway, but she was with people both Monday and Tuesday.  He also didn’t know where her locker was to see if he could find her after school.  By Wednesday he had turned desperate enough to ask Jonathan.  While most of his Hellfire assholes were busy debating whether or not to go see Christine next week on Friday after the next Hellfire club meeting or Saturday, Eddie leaned around Gareth and asked Jonathan, “Hey, do you know where Nancy’s locker is?”

It was like a record scratched and the rest of the table stopped their bickering.  Eddie refrained from the eye roll he wanted to share with Jonathan.  Instead he said.  “The right answer is, obviously, Saturday.  Matinee prices and we can get ripped beforehand.”  

David looked appalled.  “Uh, no way.  Not after what happened with Videodrome .” 

“I do regret suggesting taking acid before watching Videodrome last winter.  That is my fault.  I doubt, however, that Carpenter will be anywhere near Cronenberg’s level and we’ll be safe if we only partake of the sweetest herb.”  Eddie laid his conversational trap knowing his party would have to all pass wisdom saving checks to avoid it.  Nerds loved nothing more than a conversation pitting two favorites against each other.  

“Nice try, Munson.”  Gareth said.  Fuck, he had been sure that they were going to fall right into that one.  “We can debate the merits of Carpenter versus Cronenberg after we watch Christine .  We can take all break to do it.  Hell, we can spend all next week debating how fucked up we want to be when we watch it.  What we can’t wait to find out is, who’s Nancy?”

Jonathan did look a little startled at that.  “I think Eddie means Nancy Wheeler?”  He said, looking over to Eddie to confirm it.

“Uh, isn’t she dating Harrington?”  Jeff asked.  “Hey, wait, didn’t you fight Harrington in the halls last week?”

Jesus Christ.  “I’m asking for Nancy’s locker number because I have a question for her.”  He said.  “And if you losers know what’s best for you, you would best not ask your DM too many more annoying questions.”

The rest of the guys mumbled to themselves, but started up another conversation.  

On the way out of the cafeteria, Jonathan pulled Eddie aside and asked. “Why didn’t you clear up that Steve was helping you?”

“What?”  Eddie asked, now that he had Nancy’s locker number, he was already thinking of what he’d say to her when he finally got a chance to talk.

“Just, when they said that Steve beat you up last week.  That’s not what happened.”

Eddie squinted at Jonathan.  “I know, but like, how would I even begin to explain what happened.  And the rumor mill, apparently, has already pinned it as two against one.  I’m sure, if you ask around, I got my ass handed to me.”

“It’s just not what happened.”

“I know, Byers.  It’s just hard to explain, without some context.  Context we can’t talk about.”

“Sucks.”  Jonathan said.

“It does, it really does.”  Eddie said.

+++

After seventh period, Eddie managed to make it to Nancy’s locker before she did.  And lo, there were no friends or boyfriends with her to make Eddie’s questions even more awkward.  

He leaned against the locker next to hers, trying not to look too much like the big bad wolf stalking another sheep.  He also didn’t want to look like someone fucking with Nancy Wheeler because he got his ass handed to him by King Steve last week.  Luckily no one was paying any attention to him and Nancy walked up only after the hall had mostly cleared out.  

“Hey, Eddie.”  She said, but her eyes narrowed with suspicion.  “I’m glad you’re here actually.”  She smiled then, and Eddie realized that people who were watching this interaction thinking he was the big bad wolf would be wrong.  Her smile wasn’t feral, but it was terrifying nonetheless.  

“Oh, yeah?”  He said.  She took a few more books out of her locker and zipped up her backpack.

“You go first.”  She said closing her locker and hoisting her backpack on her shoulder.  Should he offer to carry her books?  Was that something you did for girls in general or girls you liked?  These kinds of things were social subtleties he still hadn’t grasped and he never had any one to ask either.  

“Well, my first question isn’t really school appropriate, maybe outside?”  He began and her eyebrow raised.  “It’s, uh, related to some little adventures in the beginning of November.

“Ah.”  She said.

“Yeah, that.  But um, maybe you could answer my second question.  You know about my, um, odd childhood?”  She nodded.  “Well, I was just thinking, there’s a lot of um things that don’t make sense.  Shit that everyone seems to know and like, I missed that lesson because of reasons.”  He gestured vaguely to the world around him.

“Makes sense.”  She said, and looked up and over at him as they walked down the hallway.

“But um, do I offer to take your book bag because you’re a girl or would I only do that if I was flirting or your boyfriend?  I guess, what I’m trying to ask is, am I being rude right now?”

She laughed.  Looked over at him and he knew he was blushing like an idiot right now.  “It’s mostly for boyfriends, but even if you were just being polite I wouldn’t accept.  Not because of Steve,” she added.  “But because I can carry my own books.”

“Gotcha.  Nancy Wheeler carries her own books.  Fights her own monsters.”  He said and she blushed.  “Your turn to ask your question.”

“I was thinking, do you want to come over to Steve’s next weekend?  We’re going to be studying for finals together and I thought you and Jonathan might want to come over too.”

“Study?  Me?”  Eddie said.  “That’s going to be a no, Wheeler.  I’m getting wasted on Saturday and watching Christine with the guys.  Then I’ve got band practice the next day.”

“Hmmmmm,”  She said.  “When’s Christine ?”

He looked over at her with suspicion.  “Probably the latest matinee they’ll play.”

“So, you’d be done by three-ish?”  She asked as Eddie pushed the doors to the school open for them.  He bowed as she walked by him.

Eddie could sense the trap Nancy was setting up, but he found he maybe didn’t mind falling into this one.  It was weird to realize that studying aside he liked the idea of hanging out with Nancy, Jonathan, and Steve.  “Probably.”

“Great, Steve can pick you up. We’ll have pizza to sober you up, and we can study all afternoon and evening.  We’ll have you back before your curfew.”

Eddie laughed, like he had a curfew.  “Maybe.  Maybe, if the movie starts early enough.  But if I do come, no one hears about me studying outside the four of us.  I’ve got a reputation to maintain.”

“Oh, sure, nothing to harm your reputation.”  She laughed at him.  “And now that we’re outside, what was your other question?”

“I’m glad the lady understands.”  He said.  Eddie looked around, to make sure no one would over hear them.  “I heard that your friend, um, Barbara was missing?  Was that related to everything?”  Nancy’s eyes went wide, and there were immediately tears threatening to flood.  What had he done wrong so quickly?  “Because, maybe I could help.  I’m not like Eleven, I’m nowhere near as powerful, but I’m not a slouch either.”  He added. 

She wiped at her eyes as Eddie grabbed his hanky out of his back pocket and handed it over to her.  “She died, that thing we fought, the demogorgon?  It killed her.  Eleven confirmed it.”  

“Oh, shit.  Nancy, I’m sorry.”  He said and meant so much more.  How the fuck did people do this comforting thing?  He thought about that Sunday, the one that was already foggy through the pain of the day.  They’d been there for him, offering company and attention.  Hell, she’d been there doing that for him while she was mourning her friend.  “Can I, I mean, do you?  Would you like a hug?”

Eyes still brimming over, she nodded twice.  Small ticks of her head down wards.  He wrapped his arms around her and she burst into harder tears.  Like he was holding back the rest of the world so she could do this.  He found instead of being awkward like he thought, he didn’t mind.  If anything, it felt good to be useful to someone else.  This was, of course, when Steve drove up in his maroon BMW.  He pulled up to the curb near them, and car idling, he opened the door and looked at Eddie with the unspoken question about what was happening, if Nancy was alright.  

Eddie thought about how to try to explain that he’d been an idiot and brought up Nancy’s dead friend, but instead he silently mouthed, “Barbara” at Steve hoping he’d get it.  

It took a few seconds, but he obviously did.  He came around the car, and said, “Nancy?  Babe?”

She pulled away from Eddie, just a little to look over at Steve, then launched herself into his arms.  Steve held her for a bit, kissed the top of her head.  Eddie stood there alone, watching her cry, like the weird freak he was.  He was debating walking away, just letting Steve comfort Nancy.  He could write a note or something, apologizing, and leave it in her locker tomorrow.  He was sure at this point he’d missed his bus, but the walk would be okay.  It wasn’t snowing, it was mostly sunny.  He’d be fine.

Nancy sniffed, a honk really, and she used the Eddie’s hanky still gripped in her hand to blow her nose.  Then, her face twisted like she’d eaten something bad, she said, “Oh, no, Eddie.  I’m sorry, that was so gross.”

He couldn’t help it, he laughed.  “It’s what it’s for,” he said.  

Then, she turned more to him, still held in Steve’s arms.  This time her smile was feral.  “I’ll wash this, and you can come over next Saturday to pick it up.  Like I said, Steve can pick you up if you need a ride.”

“Fine!”  Eddie said.  “You win.”

“Thanks,”  She said.  “For offering to help.  With Barbara.”  Steve looked over at Eddie, a bit startled.  Probably finally putting together exactly why she was crying.

“Wish I could have helped when it mattered.”  He said, honestly.

“Me too.”  She said, this time with the kind of resetting of her shoulders that Eddie could feel in his own bones.  When you pushed down the raw grief because there wasn’t enough time to just wallow in it like you wanted to.  You had school, and band and Wayne.  Or, in her case, school, and Steve, and her family.  “Do you want a ride?  We can give him a ride home, right?”  She asked Steve.

“I’m actually good.  I’m going to walk home today.”  He said.

“It’s not actually a problem.”  Steve said, still mostly looking at Nancy.  It seemed honest enough to Eddie, but he wanted to give them time together, where Nancy could maybe fall apart a little bit more.  He’d realized as she cried that while he’d been a mess most of this month - but he’d had people reaching out to help him through it.  The people who knew about Eleven were there for him and no one else at school cared if he was being even more of a head case than normal.  

She’d been holding it together because officially, he bet, Barbara wasn’t dead.  She was missing or a runaway or something.  He knew enough about the cover-up from the others that it would be something like that.  Cold and indifferent to the pain people like Nancy were in and unable to share their grief because people couldn’t know.  So, at school and to her family she had to act as if the worst hadn’t happened.  She couldn’t be the headcase freak like Eddie could or everyone would give her shit for it.

“I know, and I mean it.  I want to walk today.  I’ll see you guys tomorrow, I guess.”  He waved, feeling a little less an intruder than he had a few minutes ago but still eager to give them space.

They both waved back, Nancy calling, “Bye, Eddie.”  As he headed towards the forested park behind the school, a shortcut towards the trailer park.  

Chapter Text

Chris brought the weed when he picked up everyone to go to see Christine .  They’d hotboxed his car after they parked and got so high they barely managed to get it together enough to buy tickets.  David could not stop laughing long enough to tell the ticket agent what movie he wanted, so Eddie had to step in and get that ticket too.  Jeff smuggled in a ton of candy so they didn’t have to pay the theater prices but they’d finished half of it by the time the movie started.  

Christine ended up being alright.  Eddie didn’t think even John Carpenter himself, god of horror, could only do so much to make a moving about a killer car that fucking scary.  But, it wasn’t awful either.  If only because that Arnie kid had the weirdest boner for his demon car.  At least it would give them something to talk about at lunch on Monday.  

They all stumbled out of the theater into the light of the day, blinking against how bright it was.  Chris noticed the car first.  “What the fuck is Steve Harrington doing?”  Eddie looked in the direction Chris was pointing and realized that Harrington was waving at him.  

“Uh.”  Eddie said and realized he was still maybe too high for this.  “He’s my ride?”

“He’s your what?”  David asked.  “What the fuck is going on with you?”

“Nancy is forcing me to study with everyone this weekend, for finals, and Steve offered to pick me up.”  Eddie said, screwing over his reputation in one sentence.  Even though he knew that explanation while true was not going to cut it.  

“What the fuck, Munson?”  Chris asked.  

“Well, I got to go guys.  David, you owe me for your ticket!”  Eddie said, running away from the situation.  

Eddie got into the passenger seat and said, “You might want to drive, Harrington.  Before those assholes get it together enough to start asking more questions.”

“Didn’t you just say you were going to study?”  Harrington asked, like that would explain anything to his friends.

“Look, the Munson name doesn’t exactly go hand in hand with caring about school.  Or jocks.  So studying and being picked up by the King himself is basically not the Eddie they know.”

Steve nodded like he knew what Eddie’s barely coherent bullshit actually meant, and maybe he did.  He’d been less of a prick at school for over a month.  Not just to Eddie either.  Eddie had really started to pay attention to it after the fight and detention with him before Thanksgiving, but it was noticeable.  It didn’t seem to hurt his reputation that much either.  At least not that Eddie had noticed.  He was willing to concede there might be some sort of popular person politics he couldn’t see.

Nancy greeted them both at the door, Jonathan was already there and looking intensely awkward.  Mrs. Wheeler did a quick once over on Eddie.  He wasn’t actually used to other people’s parents, his band’s parents knew him, but they’d known him since he was still in Middle School and much smaller.  It was different when parents met him now, full on trailer trash metalhead freak.  Whatever she saw, she didn’t outright say that he couldn’t come in and study with her daughter but it did make Eddie feel like he needed to be on his best behavior.

But he was still a nerd and a little shit, so he bowed deeply to her and said, “You must be the lovely, Mrs. Wheeler.”  

From behind him he heard Harrington mutter, “Christ” under his breath.

“My name is Eddie the Studious, at your service.”

Eddie’s attention was on Mrs. Wheeler who looked mixed between flattered and embarrassed, which was better than judging him and finding him wanting.  

“We’re going into the basement to study.”  Nancy announced and started to hustle all of them downstairs.

Jonathan laughed as they walked down the stairs together, “Eddie, you make me look suave in comparison.”

Nancy was ahead of them on the stairs down to the basement and said, “Get out of here, creeps.”  as she walked into the den to whoever was already down there.  As Eddie entered the space, he saw Mike was down there with another kid.

Mike ignored his sister.  “Eddie!”  Eddie winced internally but smiled at the kid.  That was a lot of enthusiasm from a kid who didn’t seem to like him the first few times they met.

“That’s Eddie?”  The kid said.  Then he smacked Mike and said, “Ask him.”

Eddie put his bag down and crossed his arms, looking down his nose at them.  He knew, because of Harrington’s slip, what Mike was going to ask but he wasn’t going to make it easy for the kid either.  Think of it as an insight check.  For both of them.  

Instead of asking Eddie anything, Mike hissed at his friend.  “Shut up, Lucas.  He’s probably busy.”

“You know what assuming makes?”  Eddie said and the kids looked like they didn’t actually know.  “An ass out of you and me.”  He explained.  “Just ask, children.”

“Oh,”  Mike said and then laughed like Eddie was funny and not telling a really dumb joke.  

Lucas, who at least had the decency to look embarrassed for his friend finally asked.  “Hey would you DM a oneshot for us over break?”   

“I don’t know, I don’t DM games for children.  I’m sure your characters have barely left the Shire.”  He said, winding them both up.  He was already going to say yes, he just wanted to make them convince him.

“Hardly,” Mike scoffed.  

While Lucas interrupted, “I’m a level 7 Ranger.”  

“We’ve fought The Demogorgon and a White Dragon.”

“Level 7 players can’t beat a dragon.”  Eddie said.  They didn’t need to lie to impress him, in fact he’d rather they didn’t.

Lucas smacked Mike, seeing before the other kid did, that it wasn’t impressing Eddie.  “It was a baby.  But we did beat it.”  

Eddie liked the kid, Lucas.  He liked Dustin and even Mike against his better judgment.  “Will the whole party be there?”  He asked to see if Will would be up for coming.  

“We’re playing at the Byers’ so Will can join in.”  Mike said.

“Well, if you already know where you're playing.”  He leaned back to look at Jonathan who was busy setting up a study space with Nancy and Steve as this little drama had been going on.  Eddie had never seen so many pens and note cards outside of Melvald’s office supply aisle.  “Does your Mom already know about this?”  Jonathan nodded. 

Eddie threw up his arms, “Fine, I’m convinced.  After Christmas,” he said, pointing at the two players.  “I’ll need everyone’s character sheets beforehand.  Like, by next week.”

Both of the boys were jumping up and down like they’d slayed a dragon themselves instead of asking Eddie to DM a game for them.  

“Alright, you asked him.  Now get out of here, you nerds.”  Steve said.

The kids ran up the stairs, feet thudding so hard Eddie could follow them through the house as they ransacked the kitchen on their way up the next set of stairs.  Probably to Mike’s room.

“Thank god you said yes.”  Nancy said, gesturing for Eddie to come over to the card table they’d all set up without him.  “Another day of Mike freaking out about asking you and I would have marched him over to your house myself.”

“Will’s excited about the game.”  Jonathan offered.  

“I’m excited to meet him.”  Eddie said.  “But now I’ve got finals to pass, next semester's Hellfire campaign, and a kiddo game to write so let’s get to studying.”

Eddie would never call studying fun, not even with people who marginally liked him, but he had to admit it was easier to do when he was in a big room where he could get up and wander around whenever he felt like moving.  No one else seemed to care or told him that he was distracting them.  Between that and actually doing his homework this month, thanks to the constant threat of Nancy checking in on him - that had kept him more in line than any threat from any teacher he ever had - he actually felt a little confident about how he might do on the finals next week.  

At least confident that he would pass them.  Hell, he might actually pull off a B in English, since it turned out he knew the material for that class better than he’d thought.

On one of his wanderings around the Wheeler basement he found a Magic 8 Ball, hidden behind one of the couches.  The blue dice glowing in the dark of the crevice between the wall and the couch.  “Hey,”  He said, reaching down to grab it.  “I haven’t seen one of these since.”  He stopped because he’d been about to lie, like he always did about his childhood.  To say since he was a kid and let people think that he meant the normal childhood stuff.  He looked over at the trio sat around the card table.  “Uh, since the Lab.”

“Magic 8 Balls?”  Harrington asked.  “That seems like a weird toy to have in a lab.”  He shrugged.  “Not that I guess I know what the hell kind of toys I think you guys had.”

“We didn’t really have toys.”  Eddie said, still staring down at the ball.  “It was more like what kind of toys could they give us that we could use for training.   You know?”  Eddie looked up and the three of them really didn’t look like they knew.  “I thought I told you about that place, when you all came over?”

“You didn’t really, um.”  Nancy started. 

“You weren’t really coherent,”  Harrington finished.  Jonathan looked like he agreed with Steve but didn’t want to say it.  “Childhood in a lab, something about games that sounded like fights to the death, creepy adults, and your escape.  That’s about all I really got.”

“Oh,”  Eddie ran his free hand over his face.  “Jesus.  I knew I was messed up that day, but I didn’t realize how much.  Sorry, I guess.”

“Not a problem.”  Nancy said and looked firmly at the other two at the card table to confirm that it wasn’t going to be a problem.  Damn, he had to admire the steel balls on her.  “Anyway, let's take a break, we need food.”

“Let’s get pizza.”  Steve said.  “I’ve got cash to pay.”

“I can help.”  Jonathan said, and Eddie who knew the state of his wallet meant he could throw in literally only a buck or two nodded in agreement.  

Steve waved them off.  “Don’t worry, this is parental guilt money.  It’s an apology for never being home, so I can buy as much pizza as I want.”  Steve said it with the light hearted aire of a joke, but Nancy’s expression behind his back suggested that it was anything but a joke.  

“I bet you get all the girls a slice, don’t you big boy?”  Eddie said instead, fluttering his lashes at Steve.

Steve, for his part, looked startled and blushed a bit, but said, “Shut it, Munson.”  Nancy had Eddie’s back and laughed as she and Steve went up the stairs to order pizza.  

After a few minutes when they didn’t come back down, Eddie asked, “Are they coming back?  Are we taking a break?”

“Oh, yeah, as far as I can tell “ordering pizza” is code for ordering pizza and making out while they wait for it to be delivered.”  Jonathan said as he laid himself out face down on one of the couches, his arm trailing down to the carpet. 

“Oh, well, I.  Break’s good.”  Eddie said and shrugged, looking at the Magic 8 Ball.

“Mmmmm.”  Jonathan agreed.

Eddie was still playing with the Magic 8 Ball, flipping it back and forth, over and over again.  He wondered if he could get it to work like it had in the Lab.  It had been literal years since he tried but he figured there’d be no harm in it.  Not here where everyone knew his past at least.

He began to rock back and forth, pushing down the thought that he must look really weird shaking the 8 Ball and rocking but they all knew he was a freak already.  It wasn’t like they were getting anything new out of him.  

When he felt like he was ready, when he could feel the slight distance to the real world that let him know he was Void adjacent, he shook the ball and asked, “If I study today, will I pass all my classes?”  In his mind, his voice had the slight echo he associated with the Void, like he was speaking in a huge, empty hall.  He flipped the ball over.  

The Magic 8 Ball said, “Reply hazy, try again.”  That meant that he wasn’t asking the right question.  

“If I study this weekend, will I pass all my finals?”  He didn’t want to spend tomorrow studying as well, knowing he’d be doing it alone in his trailer and that it would suck.

“Without a doubt.”  It said.

“Damn it.”  He said.  He really didn’t want to spend tomorrow studying too, but now that he knew he’d pass if he did, he had to do it.  

Nancy and Steve came back down the stairs at that point, pizza in hand.  When they said 30 minutes or less, they really meant it, still Eddie was surprised that much time had passed.  “What are you guys doing?”  Nancy said as she came back down the scene.

“Eddie’s asking the 8 Ball questions like it’s really answering.”  Jonathan said into the couch.  “I was trying to nap.”  

“Uh, it is really answering them.”  Eddie said, shaking himself out of the Void and putting the ball down.  “Like I was saying before, we didn’t have toys at the lab, everything was a tool to train us.”

“What the hell were you doing with a Magic 8 Ball?”  Steve asked. 

“At first it was just the standard telekinesis.  I’m not great at that.”  He admitted.

“Standard telekinesis.”  Steve said, mostly to himself.  “What is my life now that someone can say sentences like that and I'm like okay, that makes sense.”

“But, like I said, that’s not what I’m great at.  From what Mike told me about the van, it sounds like Eleven was great at that,” he said and felt a tug of grief in his chest.  “I was good at, well I call it the Void, but I think the real term is remote viewing?”

“Like with Eleven and the sensory deprivation pool?”  Nancy asked.  She had cleaned off the card table enough for the pizza box and some plates.  Jonathan and Eddie had both gotten up from where they were laying down or sitting, respectively, and were already hovering around the pizza.  Frankly, Eddie was trying not to drool, he had no idea how hungry he’d gotten.  

“Uh, yeah, except I don’t need one of those to do the work.  If I can move a bit, like I was just rocking, I can get there.  A little TV or radio static is even better.  That’s how I found the Byers’ house that night, you know.”  He said and bit into the pizza.  “I asked to find Eleven and she was there, surrounded by all of you guys, Dustin was on the phone.  And there was mail on the counter with the address.  If I hadn’t passed out from the effort, I would have been there before you guys left for the school.”

“That’s creepy.  Spying on people like that.”  Jonathan said and Steve looked over at Jonathan sharply.  No idea what that was about, and frankly, Eddie didn’t care.  

“Well, I haven’t done it in years before that night.  And like, I’m not in the habit of spying on people anyway.”

“What does this have to do with the Magic 8 ball?”  Nancy asked.  Eddie had been expecting her to eat daintily, but she was devouring her slice of pizza about as quickly as he was.  

“Oh, well, uh,”  Eddie started looking down at his pizza.  God it was so weird to talk about this stuff out loud.  “They didn’t really call it anything around me, I was just learning it, but I did hear them say I was showing some precognitive talent.”

Nancy looked startled and Steve caught that.  “What does that mean?”  he asked.  

“It means he can tell the future.”  Nancy said, before he could.  The other two men in the room looked over at Eddie, eyes wide.  

“Not well, and not without a Magic 8 Ball.”  Eddie rushed to reassure them.  “And you have to ask the right question or the answer is meaningless.  It’s not a big deal, right?”  

“You also said moving things with your mind wasn’t that big a deal because you aren’t good at it.”  Jonathan said and took a bite of his pizza.

Steve picked up where Jonathan had left off.  “Yet, none of us can move shit with our minds.  I think you’re not really comparing apples and oranges here.  Or you are?  I lost the metaphor.”  

“What I think Steve is trying to say,” Nancy cut in, “is that even if compared to your other siblings you weren’t powerful, compared to everyone else you really are.”  Steve pointed at Nancy to imply that she’d gotten what he was trying to say exactly.

“It doesn’t matter,”  Eddie said, trying to get them to understand that what he did was dangerous and it was better to ignore it, to suppress it and forget it.  It’s how he’d survived for the last four years.  And had until Eleven showed up in his life with a bunch of other people.  People who kept trying to be friends.  “I don’t use them, I don’t need to use them.  Everything with the Upside Down is over, and whatever I can do is meaningless now unless I want to be a perv and spy on people or learn stupid meaningless shit like if I study tomorrow I’ll pass all my finals.  Not super scintillating news, guys.”

The trio shrugged as one, and Eddie was pretty sure they were going to drop it, at least for now.  He tossed the Magic 8 Ball behind him onto the couch Jonathan had been inhabiting and finally dug into his pizza.

Chapter Text

Eddie was driving to Rick’s house, out to Lover’s Lake.  He had the van, because it was Saturday and Wayne wasn’t working.  He was blaring Motorhead’s Ace of Spades on the tape deck and feeling pretty fucking self-satisfied.  

He did end up studying last Sunday, went over to rehearsal early and forced his band to study with him to make it at least moderately tolerable.  Which, as was predicted, meant Eddie did pass his end of semester finals before Winter break.  All of them.  That hadn’t happened since Fall semester Sophomore year.  The final Friday of the semester they also managed to end the Hellfire campaign on a pretty good note.  Gareth’s new character was doing pretty well, and the club had worked together enough to actually kill the bad guy.  Which meant that aside from band practice, all he had to do this break was build the overview of the Spring semester campaign and the first month of campaign encounters and NPCs for Hellfire, plus reanimate one of his older campaigns and turn it into a kiddie appropriate one-off for them after Christmas.

That also meant he had a lot of time to get high, play his guitar, and generally fuck around.  He wasn’t used to a Winter Break without some sort of make-up school work assignment to help him get just enough credits to pass the semester.  It was actually tripping him up a bit not to have something to be anxious over.  His head kept spinning around thinking it needed to be worried about something, find nothing, think he was forgetting something, then it would spiral down until it found his grief for Eleven.  That would punch him in the gut until he shoved it down again.  Mix and repeat.  

Not fun for what should have been a fairly chill Winter Break.

Which is why he was taking Rick up on finishing up a few deals for him, to earn just enough cash to buy a shit ton of weed.  It wasn’t strictly dealing, more like delivery which skirted around the rules he’d made for himself about keeping away from cops.  Still it was helpful enough to Rick to earn him a stupid amount of weed.

“Munson!”  Rick greeted him at the door as Eddie was getting out of the car.  

“Hey, man!”  Eddie greeted back.  Rick opened his arms wide, he was a hugger, and enveloped Eddie.  He was a big guy, something like six foot five, probably had over a hundred pounds on Eddie too, but he never made Eddie feel like he had to be wary.  The hugging probably helped.  That and his girl, Mel, was always there in the background, which calmed Rick down.  She treated Eddie like he was her younger brother.  Gave him fucking cookies and shit each time he came over, because she liked to bake and bake.  

“Mel made peanut butter chocolate chip today.”  Rick said, pulling him inside his house.  It was a fucking nice house, which Eddie thought, was what being a good dealer got you.  A beautiful girl, a lake house with an amazing view.  Rick even had a boat and boat house.  It was a good life, the kind of life Eddie wanted but couldn’t actually imagine ever having.  Sure, Rick had to deal with some shady characters, people that Eddie didn’t even want to know, but that seemed to be a small price to pay to also live the dream.  

“I love you Mel, when you get tired of Rick, call me!”  He shouted over to the kitchen.  He could hear Mel laughing at him.  

“Cookies will come next, they’re still in the oven.”  Rick said, guiding Eddie towards his couch with his hand on Eddie’s back.

“I can smell them, dude, even over the weed.”  Eddie laughed.  

Once they sat down, Rick was all business.  Giving Eddie the names and meeting places for his three drop-offs, plus enough cash to get gas once he was outside of Hawkins.  He also handed Eddie a gun, promising that he wouldn’t have to use it, but the people he was meeting should know it was there.  Eddie wasn’t a huge fan of that, but he knew Rick was a cautious guy and if he said Eddie wouldn’t have to use it, then he wouldn’t have to use it.  

At least he knew how to shoot the gun.  Rick loved to get wasted and shoot the gun at targets in his backyard.  He’d done it with Eddie a few times, and Eddie turned out to have decent aim.  Not great, but good enough to hit the target while high.  

“You get that done this afternoon, and I’ll give you a huge plate of Mel’s cookies and so much fucking weed, my guy.”  Rick smiled at him.

“Hell, yeah, this will be a cake walk.  Thanks for the opportunity.”  Eddie said.  

The trip took longer than expected.  The first guy was late, which made Eddie late to the next meeting.  That fucker was a tweaker and had to be talked down from committing some first tier violence when Eddie finally did show up.  He’d been glad for the gun then, because just putting it down the back of his pants as he got out of the van had helped calm the asshole down.  The third guy tried to haggle with Eddie, claiming Rick was robbing him blind and he should have gotten a discount on his supply.  Eddie didn’t care, and had to repeat, “take it up with Rick” so many times he could hear it echoing in his head on the drive back.  He counted the cash from that guy three times, because by the end he trusted him less than the tweaker and that was saying a lot.  

By the time he finally got back to Rick’s, after gassing up Wayne’s van, it was past dinner time.  Rick was happy to see him, as he always was and Mel fed him chicken cacciatore to “make up for Weevil being an asshole.”  Weevil being the near violent tweaker, which Eddie thought was a very appropriate name for the dude.  Dinner was fucking great, and Rick being the generous man that he was smoked Eddie out before he left with his Winter Break supply of weed and a bit of extra cash “for his pain.”

Wayne wasn’t as happy with Eddie as he came home that evening.  “You know I hate it when you drive high.”  He was even more apoplectic when he found out what Eddie had been doing all afternoon.

“Boy,”  Wayne started.  He hadn’t been this mad since Eddie first started living with him.  Fresh out of the lab and pretty much feral.  “You cannot risk getting a record.  In another life, I wouldn’t fucking care what you did, but that’s not the life we live.  You show up in the wrong system, and you don’t come home.  You know this.  You want money?  Get a job like everyone else.”  

Wayne shut himself in his room for the rest of the evening leaving Eddie feeling like shit.  It would be so much easier if he could just deal some party drugs for the rich kids, some weed for everyone else at school.  He could get his own ride, or better yet help Wayne get the truck he always wanted and take the van for himself and his band.  He could buy the Warlock he had his eye on.  He could buy as much weed as he needed to smooth out the world and stay nicely toasted all the time.  It would be so good for him.  But he knew Wayne was right.  In fact, the danger was worse now that he knew that the lab had continued after the massacre.  That meant there were still people out there who possibly knew about Eddie.  

Eddie didn’t want to think about that right now.  What it would mean to get an after school job, or what it might mean that there were still people who might know about him out there.  Fuck that.  He broke out his rolling papers and rolled a nice big joint for himself.  He didn’t want to deal with this right now, it was the first day of Winter break, he was going to get high again, make himself some mac and cheese and stay up to watch the midnight creature feature.  

+++

His misplaced righteous anger faded as he slept.  He woke up at noon, Wayne long gone for his Sunday shift, and immediately felt like the worst fuck up.  He drank the cold dregs of the coffee Wayne made before he left for work and made himself a second pot of coffee.  He grabbed one of Wayne’s cigarettes and his leather and battle jackets before sitting on his stoop with the coffee and cigarette to help wake him up, squinting into the cold winter sun.  Drinking in that small reminder that even if he was a fuck up, he was a free fuck up.

He couldn’t take back what he did yesterday, and frankly, he didn’t want to, he needed the weed and the cash, but he knew Wayne had a good point about not being a dumbass.  He figured he owed Wayne something, an apology.  He could clean up the trailer today, maybe cook a real dinner instead of restocking their fridge and freezer with instant meals.  That’d be nice.  Right?

Hell, he could get some Christmas lights from Melvald’s and hang them up inside.  If it wasn’t outside, they probably weren’t such a pain to put up and take down, right, so it wouldn’t be as shitty as Jeff made it out to be, and it would be homey.  

Which is what Eddie did end up spending the day doing.  He walked downtown to Melvald’s for the lights and for some of the note cards and pens that Nancy had used.  They ended up being helpful for finals so maybe Eddie could use them himself.  He also found a mug that said “Bitchin’!” for Wayne’s collection, which meant that his Christmas shopping was done too.

Then he walked to Martin’s and got everything he’d need for red beans and rice, Wayne’s favorite, which also happened to make a shit ton of leftovers for the next few days of dinner.  

By the time Wayne walked in that evening, the lights were hung up, the beans were almost done, and the trailer was, well, it was cleaner.  Eddie wouldn’t call it clean though.  At least for them, it looked pretty nice.  

“Smells good,” Wayne said as he kicked off his boots by the door and hung up his jacket.  They were lucky it hadn’t snowed yet and the doorway wasn’t knee deep in snow boots.  

Alright, Eddie knew he needed to grow a pair and apologize.  He’d been practicing all afternoon.  It wasn’t hard.  “I wanted to apologize,” he said.  

Wayne turned to look at him and one eyebrow raised, like Spock’s whenever he was dubious about whatever Captain Kirk was going to say next.  Look, Eddie had seen that cartoon in repeats after school in eighth grade and he imprinted on it.  He didn’t even like sci-fi and it was stuck in his head anyway.

“I was being a dumb ass yesterday.  I don’t regret getting money for the break, but, uh, I think you’re right that I need to get a real job next semester.” 

“Being a dumbass is what being young is about.  If you were anyone else, it wouldn’t matter to me.  I just can’t lose you because you took a risk you shouldn’t have.  Too many people know about you right now.  That’s too much risk already.”  Wayne said, and pulled Eddie into a rare hug.  “I can’t lose you.”

“You’re not going to lose me.”  Eddie said, hugging Wayne back.  “You won’t.”

+++

Ten could hear Papa talking to one of the doctors on the other side of the door.  “His accuracy has already improved.  He’s doing better with the precognitive work than any other subject here.”

“I think he might be providing the best example of the physical/mental divide we’ve seen in powers so far.  His telekinetic abilities, as you know, are sub par, but his remote viewing is fantastically accurate and even more so, now that he’s showing precognitive abilities, he’s adding real support to our data.”

“I want to prep him for some controlled field work.  If his accuracy stays in the mid-nineties that’ll be more than accurate enough.”  Papa said.

“I agree.”  The doctor said.  He could hear the doctor’s shoes squeak as he walked down the hallway away from the door which led to the testing room where Ten waited for Papa.  

It took a few more minutes, but finally Papa entered the room and said, “Good morning, Ten!  Ready for more games today?”

“Yes, Papa.”  Ten said and smiled up at him.  Papa seemed like he was in a good mood before they had even begun. Not to mention, Ten was good at what they were going to do today, which meant Papa would be happy at the end of their session too.  It was going to be a good day.  

They started with what Papa called warm-ups.  Some of the where-is game, finding people throughout the lab.  Then he started playing with the Magic 8 Ball.  Papa had already discovered that questions had to be “good” questions.  That the answers meant something if Ten used if/then statements.  If something happened, then would this happen?  If he followed that formula, then the answers the Magic 8 Ball gave Ten would be right and Papa would be happy.  

Papa explained to him that it was Ten who was actually finding the answers, not the Magic 8 Ball, but Ten liked it better when he thought it was the ball.  If it was him, that felt too big, how could he contain all that information?  The ball, however, only had a few answers to pull from and that was a nice contained way of answering Papa’s questions.  So, Ten secretly liked to pretend it really was the ball doing the work.  

Papa rattled off questions to Ten, going as fast as Ten could answer.  Each question coming faster than the last until Ten felt like he was watching himself rattle the ball and answer Papa’s questions.  Then Papa started asking about his siblings.  Ten didn’t like that.  He didn’t want to know about them.  More though, the answers started to get weird and Ten started to get flashes of the answers behind his eyes.  He tried to keep his focus on the Magic 8 Ball, where the answers belonged, but when Papa finally asked about Eleven, Ten froze.  His whole body went rigid.  He felt the ball roll out of his hands onto the ground, but all he could see was Eleven frozen in mid-air, her feet twisting, her bones grinding.  She was covered in blood, the blood of the bodies, of his siblings around her.  He couldn’t see why she was in the air, who she was fighting, just that she was.  That there was so much death.  The only sounds Ten could hear were Eleven and someone else who was speaking.  Someone who was disappointed in Eleven.  Ten couldn’t focus on what the man was saying though, only on the blood that covered the floor.  The blood of his siblings.  

He fought, he didn’t want to see this, he didn’t want to see this at all.  He fought against the tide of the questions Papa had asked, wishing he had the ball in his hand to ground him.  Finally, Papa stopped asking questions and Ten collapsed as darkness overtook him.  His final thought was that he wanted to warn Papa.

+++

Later Ten would wake up, in the testing room, face covered in blood and silence all around him.  He didn’t know how long he waited for someone to get him, but no one did.  Finally, he had to pee and he braved going outside.  The first hall was empty, but as he rounded the corner, he saw bodies all along the floor, blood everywhere.  So he ran.  He ran until he was in the basement.  He’d only known it was there, because he liked to use the Void to map out his whole world at night in the dark, when the cameras couldn’t catch his nose bleeding.  

He stayed there until hunger and thirst drove him to find a way to leave.

Chapter Text

Christmas had come and gone.  Wayne had been suitably delighted with Eddie’s gift mug.  Wayne had gotten Eddie Ozzy’s Bark at the Moon .  It had come out last month and Eddie had been too broke and then too busy to get it yet.   

It was the last week of break, after New Year’s and 1984 so far was blustery and snowy.  It didn’t feel much like a new year, it felt like a cocoon.  Insulated by snow, the break between two semesters, the holidays behind him.  It was like he was standing in a doorway between two rooms and he wasn’t ready to go one way or another.  He found that he liked the feeling.  Some of the anxiety he’d had earlier in the break had dissipated over time and a shit ton of weed.  Which was good, because he wasn’t going to be stoned while he was DMing for kids, and he didn’t have to fight off his anxiety on his own.

He’d spent the last two days reworking a section of a campaign from two years ago into a one shot.  In the larger campaign, Hellfire had to steal a grimoire to find a clue to a larger plot.  This time, the heist and the puzzles were mostly the same, but it was a one time heist with a few more short dungeon levels and bad guys to fight along the way in and out.  It also featured an NPC tiefling bard, Ansell Steelroot, who was hired alongside the party to help; which meant that Eddie got to resurrect a favorite character of his he hadn’t gotten to play in a long time.  In the original campaign, the bard would die just after the successful heist, during the second to last encounter in the dungeon to really ramp up the danger and drama of it all.  It had been an epic death scene the first time and Eddie had really milked it for all the drama he could.  But, because this was a kiddie game, and the NPC didn’t have to die to further the plot, he was hoping that the Party would make the right choices and Ansell would live on in this universe.  

Since he was doing everyone a favor, apparently, and it was a Monday so Wayne had the van, Jonathan came and picked him up.  He knocked on the door as Eddie was finishing his coffee for the morning.  “Come on in, don’t let the heat out.”  Eddie said as he opened the door.  Jonathan came in and after closing the door, he stood there like he didn’t know what to do with himself.  “I just have to grab my stuff, and then we can get going.”

Eddie ran around his room, grabbing his shitty boom box, his mood setting mix tapes, his guide books, his screens, his maps and figurines and shoved them all into his Hellfire club box.  Then he grabbed his acoustic guitar, slung it over his shoulder, and walked back into the living area of the trailer.  Jonathan was saying, “Thanks for being willing to do this,” but when he saw Eddie he looked confused.  “Does DnD need that much stuff?  I’m pretty sure that Will doesn’t have a quarter of that stuff when he plays.”

“You don’t have to have much more than the books and dice.”  Eddie said as he put the box down to put on his shoes.  “But I’m a fucking good DM and you gotta set the mood.”  He grabbed his box again as he straightened up.  “Thanks again for the ride.”  He pushed Jonathan back out of his trailer and locked the door.  He dumped the box in the back seat of the car, but kept the guitar with him in the passenger seat.  

Jonathan said, “no problem,” and started the car.  The tape deck was playing the Dead Kennedys, which was not Eddie’s favorite, but was more than passable and better than anything he’d heard in Steve’s car.  Jonathan was a quiet dude, and Eddie’s mind was already on the game, so the ride over was silent, but it was short and didn’t descend into awkwardness so Eddie counted it as a win.  

When they got to the Byers’ house, Eddie realized he hadn’t been here since the night he saw the Demogorgon.  For a brief moment he wondered if the house was still torn up from the fight.  It had to be right?  Mrs. Byers greeted him at the door as Jonathan grabbed Eddie’s Hellfire club box before he could and led him into the house.   

Eddie looked around and didn’t see any of the damage he expected, the walls were patched, the carpet in the hallway had been replaced.  It was obvious something had happened, but not what.  Mrs. Byers said, “Eddie, it’s so nice to meet you finally.  I’ve heard so much about you.”  Jonathan put the box down on the dining room table and then went down the hallway.  Eddie could hear him calling for Will to come out because Eddie was here.

“Uh, it’s nice to meet you too Mrs. Byers.”  Eddie said.  He held his hand out for a handshake, feeling out of place as he always did around parents, but she came in for a hug instead.  

“I’m so sorry about what happened to Eleven.”  She said.

Eddie jerked in her arms.  She knew?  “I’m, I mean.  What?”  He said and then felt himself blush at sounding so flustered.  

“Jonathan told me, when he went over that Sunday after everything, when Will was still in the hospital.  He told me that Eleven was your sister?”  She asked, like maybe she was confused.

He wanted to deny it, because he was so used to denying that whole part of his life but her sympathy was real and  honest.  In the end, he couldn’t hold on to a denial in the face of it.  “She was.”  He said finally.

Jonathan came back down the hallway at the same time.  “Sorry if that was, like classified, but like we’re all part of the family now, right?”  

Eddie stared at him as he walked by to the kitchen like he hadn’t casually up ended Eddie’s world for the last fucking two months.  “Who else knows?”  He didn’t do a good job at keeping the panic from his voice.

“It’s okay, Eddie.”  Joyce said, in a soft voice, her warm hands still on his arms. “We’re not going to tell anyone else.  It’s just us.”

Eddie blew out the breath he’d been holding into his bangs, fluffing them up in his frustration.  “I’m assuming all the kids here today know?”  He’d already confirmed that three of them knew, he figured Will wasn’t being kept in the dark.  

Joyce nodded, “can’t keep anything from each other.  And it’s good for Will to know there’s someone out there who understands all this stuff more than the rest of us do.”

Eddie wasn’t so sure he was qualified to help with anything related to the Upside Down, but he was a soft heart for kids who were different.  It was the whole reason Hellfire existed.  Sure it was for the freaks who didn’t fit in high school , but the same thing applied here.  He could feel his whole fucking being respond to it.  He knew that if Will needed him to be that person who understood, then Eddie could and would be that person.  

Fuck him, he realized.  He guessed he really could be that person.

“It’s fine, Mrs. Byers,” he reassured her even if he was still feeling far from fine about it.  “Just wish someone had given me a list at some point.  No more surprises.”

As he said that, Lucas and Dustin came barreling down the hallway.  “Eddie!”  Dustin shouted.  The kid he assumed was Will, since they’d never met, came walking out of his bedroom, slower than his friends.  He looked wane and sallow, like the kind of kid who died of consumption in a Victorian novel Eddie would have been forced to read in school.  

Eddie gathered himself together, starting to put the mantle of Dungeon Master on, as he bowed low.  “Welcome adventures, but where may I ask, is the rest of your party?”

“Mike’ll be here in a few minutes.”  Lucas said, decidedly not playing along.  

“Might the lord’s Dustin and Lucas introduce me to the party member I have not had the pleasure of meeting?”  He asked.  

“Oh, right.”  Dustin said.  “Eddie, this is Will.  Will, this is Eddie.”  Come on, kids, he thought, get in the groove.

“Young, sir.  It is good to meet such an experienced adventurer as yourself.”  He bowed.  

Will, for his part, didn’t seem to have the endless energy of the other two boys but did offer up a shy wave.  “It’s nice to meet you, Eddie.  I heard a lot of cool stuff about you.”

“And I’ve heard good stuff about you as well.”  Eddie said, dropping his faux old-timey act since it was going over like a lead brick.  These kids better bring more than this level of effort to their game.  “Looking forward to the game?  Your character is pretty powerful, good min/maxing on his skillset.”  

Will nodded and blushed a little, and mumbled a “thank you,” so quietly that Eddie wasn’t sure he was meant to hear it.  

The boys led him over to the kitchen table, which had already been cleared, and gave him the seat at the end of the table where he could start setting up.  He started unpacking his box as he heard the doorbell ring and Mike showed up alongside Mrs. Wheeler.  She and Mrs. Byers chatted for a while before Mrs. Wheeler left again, all the while the boys stared at him setting up, not daring enough to actually ask him questions.  Good, he thought, they should live in fear of the DM, at least in game.  

Mrs. Byers and Jonathan watched for a bit too, but eventually both wandered away to do their own thing.  “Alright, pipsqueaks, time to sit down and get started.”

There was some minor shuffling and jousting for seats.  Wheeler made a big deal of grabbing his dice and game sheets out of his bag and placing them on the table with a flourish.  He was normally their DM and he seemed pretty stoked to be a player this session.  Eddie had even called him last week to decide together how to level up his old character to match the levels of the rest of the party and Eddie was impressed by his thought process.  Instead of the min/maxing strategy of both Will and Dustin, or the apparently chaotic with a purpose scatter shot of Lucas’ choices based on which skill he wanted next, he’d gone for a more organic approach to the character choosing what he thought the character would have learned in his last adventures.  Eddie had to admit that for a middle schooler he was probably a pretty good DM with a strong focus on story.  

Eddie hit play on his boombox and a medieval sounding tavern song came on.  Eddie had spent weeks on his background music tapes, borrowing a bunch of music from the library and using Jeff's parents sound system to dub the best mixes for taverns, suspense, and fighting.  Good adventuring music was one of his claims to fame as a DM.  Alongside, being sadistic and theatrical.  For the kiddies today, the only thing he was toning down was the sadism.  “You’re party stands at the door of the White Horse Inn, it’s a blustery, rainy night and the inside seems welcoming and warm.  You’ve been told that there is a tiefling inside named Ansell the Bard who you are supposed to contact.  He has more details on the quest ahead.  What do you do?”

Eddie liked starting off new players with an easy decision like this just to see if anyone was immediately suspicious of their surroundings or if anyone was blindly trusting.  How different people reacted to something innocuous like entering a tavern where they were supposed to go could help him as a DM change-up some challenges on the fly.  Dustin and Mike immediately wanted to go in, but Lucas requested an insight check to see what, if anything, he could learn.  He rolled low enough that the group learned nothing more that he’d already told them in the set up.  By that time, the first track of his ambiance mixtape had ended.  After Lucas’ roll, Will requested one as well, and he rolled high enough Eddie was able to say, “the Inn is in a seedier part of town and it’s good to be aware of your surroundings least you be ambushed or pick pocketed but there is nothing outwardly suspicious either and it feels safe, enough, to go inside.”

Two insight checks to learn the lay of the land, but no unnecessary magic, and no one barging in with swords drawn were all good signs.  He was already impressed by their character sheets.  Everyone had a strategy to building their character which was a good sign, but it was good to get confirmation that they did, in fact, know how to play well enough to be fun for him as a DM.  

Now came Eddie’s favorite part, the introduction of Ansell, he pressed stop on the tape deck.  “You make your way inside the Inn.  It is warm and dry.  For a place such as this it is also well-lit, but with enough darkened corners for the more nefarious to do their dirty dealings if need be.  It is not a busy night at the White Horse, but even if it had been, the Bard seated near the center of the room would not be hard to find.  He is a handsome tiefling with silver white hair bound up in a leather cord and large black horns that match his dark eyes.  He’s wearing green and black adventuring leathers and is playing his lute.”  Eddie reached behind him and grabbed his guitar.  He slung one leg over the chair arm, and leaned back towards the other arm, affecting how he imagined the Bard would be seated playing lute and waiting for adventures to come to him.  He started strumming a bit of the introduction to Led Zepplin’s Over the Hills and Far Away .  

It got the response he was hoping for as the boys went crazy.  He knew they’d been checking out the guitar before the game even started, but they probably hadn’t been expecting a bard who could and would actually play in game.

“No way!”  Lucas said while Mike and Will were just generally shouting at each other.

“I knew you had guitars but didn’t know you were any good!”  Dustin said.  

Eddie gave him a death glare, and said, “is that how you introduce yourself to the Bard?”  Which, as planned, shut the boys up quickly and finally they got around to introducing themselves.  

Finally after the introductions, Will asked, “And may we ask who you are?”

Eddie started to play another Led Zepplin tune, since he’d run out of the introduction to Over the Hills , and said, “I’m known around here as Ansell Steelroot the Bard.  I have been waiting for you four to join me, before we can start our adventure.”  Then Eddie put down his guitar and began explaining the goal of the quest.  To adventure inside a mountain not far outside of town, guarded by monsters, in which resided the Red Grimoire of Berthold the Brave which Ansell’s Mentor and Liege needed to protect the land from a rampaging dragon.  Now the dragon was part of the original campaign, and the adventurers would have at least attempted to aid in the fight against the dragon if the campaign had a full semester to play out, but for this one shot the Grimoire was a great goal. 

The adventure set-up done, they spent the next few hours before lunch fighting their way inside the dungeon.  Mrs. Byers came by to offer up lunch around one in the afternoon and Eddie elected that they all take a break.  He knew he was getting antsy himself and if that was true then the kids probably needed to eat and run around for a bit before they could resume the game.  

Turns out he was right.  Mrs. Byers had made a ton of grilled cheese sandwiches and everyone got a mug of tomato soup.  Once the kids were finished they all started rough housing, which Eddie was fine to watch, but apparently the boys thought he was being left out because they moved their roughhousing right over to him and sucked him into it.  

It finally ended with Dustin crying out, “no wedgies, no wedgies!” and everyone laying on chairs, the couch, or the ground huffing and puffing with exertion.

The second half of the day was even better than the first half since Eddie had gotten a sense of everyone’s play style and figured out from that how to keep the group moving along at a steady pace.  

The party all went crazy during Ansell’s death scene, as he sacrificed himself to a trap that deployed once Lucas’ Ranger took the Grimoire from its vaulted resting place.  Dustin’s barbarian even cried manfully over the Bard’s dying body.  The death really galvanized the party and they got out of the dungeon and back to the Inn, where Ansell’s mentor was waiting for them all.  Dustin really acted the hell out of telling Helias of Ansell’s death and handing over the Grimoire.  Eddie was really proud of the boys and their skills.  

“That was great!”  Will was saying before he was interrupted by some coughing.  He’d really opened up throughout the game, becoming as excitable and rambunctious as the rest of the kids even if he wasn’t quite as loud as them.  The boys kept chatting at Eddie as Will coughed but he could see all of them looking at each other and at Will.  There was trepidation and maybe even some fear in their eyes.  Eddie hated to see it, even if he understood why they all might feel like that.

To cut the tension, Eddie said, “I’m happy to run another one-off for you guys at Spring Break.”

“Really?”  Dustin asked?

“Yeah, you guys were great players.  Really got into the whole thing, made smart decisions and used your skills wisely.”

“Even though we killed Ansell?”  Lucas asked.

“Ansell was supposed to be killed at that point in the story, guys.”  Eddie said.  “There’s a way for him to survive, because it’s not fun if there isn’t at least a possibility of it happening, but it’s nearly impossible for it to happen and neither time I’ve run this particular story has anyone managed it, so no worries.  Plus, death scenes are so fun.”  He smiled at them, his feral smile that drove the jocks at school mad and made the teacher’s worry.  It had the right effect on the boys in front of him though, like they understood the joke, that this was all for show, because putting on a show was fun.

Jonathan and Mrs. Byers, who had fled to other rooms for the entirety of the game, had now wandered back out to the living spaces as the game concluded.  Mrs. Byers asked, “Eddie, will you be joining us for dinner?”  

Which Eddie thought would be nice.  Better than what he’d planned to eat at home, but he also didn’t want to overstay his welcome.  “No, thank you, Mrs. Byers.”

“Alright, then time for everyone to call their parents.”  Mrs. Byers said, as Lucas turned to the kitchen, first to call.  

“Mike, do you want my parents to give you a ride home?”  Lucas asked.  

“Oh, yeah, that’d be great.”  He said, bouncing on his toes.  “But wait, I wanted to ask Eddie something.”  He reached into his bag and brought out the Magic 8 Ball.

Eddie tensed and glanced at Will who had noticed Eddie’s tension and had hunched right up again.  He tried to relax.  “My sister said you can use this to tell the future?”  Mike asked.  

Eddie ran his hand over his face.  “Jesus Christ.  I really do need a list of who knows and what they know, don’t I?  Have any of you heard of keeping secrets?”

“That’s not a no,”  Dustin said, starting to bounce in time to Mike’s own excitement.  

Then he had the misfortune to look over at Will, who had been so polite, so quiet, but so happy all afternoon and he had the biggest, most hopeful eyes Eddie had ever seen on a kid.  Fuck, was he really going to do this?  Yes, he probably was.  “It’s not a no.”  Eddie confirmed.  

Lucas, who hadn’t made it to the phone in the kitchen yet, turned to him wide-eyed.  “Holy crap.  I thought you were making it up, Mike.”  

“I told you Nancy is too boring to lie about something like this.”  Mike said.

Eddie held up one finger. “First off, your sister is not boring, she’s a hard ass.  Which in her case is cool.”  Then he held up two fingers, “Secondly, if you want to see it, there are rules to the game.”

He could see in his periphery, that Mrs. Byers and Jonathan were studiously not looking in his direction.  Great, a bigger audience than before.  Whatever, he’d had worse audiences for this stuff in the Lab.  Comparatively this was nothing.

“First rule: no weirdo questions.  Don’t spy on people, don’t be creeps.  Second rule: you gotta phrase the questions like: if x happens, then does y happen?  Don’t know why but the answers are better, more accurate if you do.”

“Oh, like in computer programing.” Will pipped up.

“Huh?”  Eddie asked, because he had no idea about that, he just remembered what had worked in the lab.  

“Yeah, uh, in computer programming you can use conditional statements, if/then statements, to make the computer do something if certain prior parameters are met first.”  Will said and Eddie kinda got it, only because it sounded like what he was doing with the Magic 8 Ball.  

“Oh, yeah.”  Dustin chimed in.  “Like if you want a program to compare numbers and always pick the larger one, then you can have it do calculations and then compare the two with the conditional statement and always print the larger of the two or something.”  

The other kids were nodding their heads along with Dustin and Will, they obviously got it, but frankly, Dustin’s explanation only confused Eddie more.

“I guess?”  He said finally.  “What I know is that I need the first part of the statement to make the second part true or not.  For example, 'if Dustin explains conditional statements to Eddie, then Eddie understands what the hell he means.'  The answer for that, by the way, would be hell no Eddie doesn’t.”  

“But it’s really easy.”  Dustin began.

“No.”  Eddie said, holding up his hand.  “You are not going to explain this to me further.  I do not care.”  He picked up the Magic 8 Ball.  “Third rule: you gotta ask me the questions.  For some reason I find it more difficult to ask and to answer the questions, it’s not impossible but it’s not as easy for me, so you guys get to ask.”  They all looked excited at that, which he thought they would.  “Reminder again, no creepy questions.”  He sat back down at this throne with the Magic 8 Ball, “you got a few minutes while I get in the zone so figure out what you want to ask.”

The boys fought amongst themselves, trying to figure out what to ask and aside from one point where Will reminded everyone “no creepy questions” they mostly didn’t get rowdy enough to pull Eddie away from the task at hand.  

As he felt the pressure of the Void descend on him, he said to the room, “I’m ready.”

The boys started asking questions about school, if any of them would have dates for the Snow Ball next year.  Surprisingly, both Lucas and Mike would, but no one else.  Which earned both boys a ragging from their friends.  It was typical kiddie shit, but it was a nicer way to use his talents than he’d ever done before so he didn’t mind.  

The problem started as the kids finally warmed up to the format and got more creative.  Asking the questions faster and faster.  Eddie could keep up, just barely, as each kid’s question overlapped with another’s and he felt a familiar pressure descend again.  He wanted to tell them to stop because he didn’t like what was happening.  He was beginning to see the futures they were asking questions about behind his eyes, that he could tell them that it wasn’t just that they’d all pass their first test back with Mr. Carter after school resumed, but what the percentage was for each of them, because he saw the red marks at the top of each of their tests.  

He was less and less in control as the boys volleyed question after question at him, until Mike asked something he should never have asked.  “If Eleven was alive, would she have kissed me?”

Eddie could feel himself drop the Magic 8 Ball as his body went rigid.  He could hear the shouts of alarm.  First from the boys around the table and then from Jonathan and Mrs. Byers.  Distantly, he could hear the buzzing clicks of the lights flickering.  

But he saw

Chief Hopper putting Eggo waffles inside a box in the woods

A little hand, Eleven’s hand, rip through a gate from the Upside Down

Eleven, her hair grown out in short ringlets around her face, in a cabin, yelling at Hopper

Will vomiting up a giant slug

A red headed girl, the same age as the kids, playing video games

Steve and Dustin walking along train tracks dropping pieces of meat as they talked

Eddie driving his van in Chicago looking for someone

A jock with a mullet, hassling Lucas and the red headed girl, Max, before Steve and Eddie stepped in

Will in a hospital bed, one of the nurses from the lab talking to Mrs. Byers as he slept

Nancy branding Will as he screamed an inhuman scream

Hoards of small monsters from the Upside Down chasing after the kids and Steve

Nancy and Jonathan with a man they called Murray, planning something around a table

Mike and Eleven dancing at the Snow Ball and sharing a chaste kiss

As the images came, as the people in them grew older, they grew less distinct and Eddie could tell that they were true but less true then the first ones he had seen, like the outcomes could shift easily with the slightest nudge.

Steve and a woman his age, Robin, in sailor uniforms, their faces bloody and beaten, stoned out of their minds

Dustin and a girl, Erica Sinclair, escaping from an elevator along side Eddie

The same mulleted asshole from before, who’s name was Billy, trying to kill Nancy with a car

Riding in a car while a giant monster made of people goo stalked through the streets of Hawkins while Dustin sang on the radio

Hopper dressed as a Russian soldier alongside Mrs. Byers

The Byers packing up to leave for California with Eleven

Max floating above a grave listening to music while everyone screamed up at her

A blonde cheerleader, Chrissy from school, levitating like Max, but every bone in her body breaking as her friends screamed around her at a party

Steve being choked in the Upside Down by some sort of bat creature while Eddie, Nancy, and the girl from before, Robin, tried to kill the monsters

Mrs. Byers and Chief Hopper kissing in a Church filled with peanut butter

Chief Hopper swinging a sword through a monster while Murray rained fire down from above

Nancy blasting away at something with a sawed off shotgun

Eddie, dying, choking on his own blood as Dustin watched

Eddie rocked back into himself in the present, still tasting the blood in his mouth.  He drew in a breath and felt like he hadn’t taken one in a long time.  His lungs hurt, his everything hurt.  When he could focus he saw everyone in the house looking at him in horror.  “I don’t feel so good.”  He managed to say, and everything faded to black.