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munsons-maiden · 2 years

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𝐖𝐨𝐫𝐥𝐝𝐬 𝐀𝐩𝐚𝐫𝐭 - 𝐂𝐡𝐚𝐩𝐭𝐞𝐫 𝟏𝟐

▹𝐂𝐡𝐚𝐩𝐭𝐞𝐫 𝟏 ▹𝐂𝐡𝐚𝐩𝐭𝐞𝐫 𝟐 ▹𝐂𝐡𝐚𝐩𝐭𝐞𝐫 𝟑

▹𝐂𝐡𝐚𝐩𝐭𝐞𝐫 𝟒 ▹𝐂𝐡𝐚𝐩𝐭𝐞𝐫 𝟓 ▹𝐂𝐡𝐚𝐩𝐭𝐞𝐫 𝟔

▹𝐂𝐡𝐚𝐩𝐭𝐞𝐫 𝟕 ▹ 𝐂𝐡𝐚𝐩𝐭𝐞𝐫 𝟖 ▹ 𝐂𝐡𝐚𝐩𝐭𝐞𝐫 𝟗

▹𝐂𝐡𝐚𝐩𝐭𝐞𝐫 𝟏𝟎 ▹𝐂𝐡𝐚𝐩𝐭𝐞𝐫 𝟏𝟏

First of all, thank you so much for all the support on this series so far; all the lovely comments and reblogs and asks are making my days and I'm so happy about every single one of them🖤 I think this is the chapter I'm proudest of so far. I hope you enjoy! - Love, Kiki 🖤

𝐏𝐚𝐢𝐫𝐢𝐧𝐠 | Eddie Munson x female reader

𝐒𝐞𝐫𝐢𝐞𝐬 𝐬𝐮𝐦𝐦𝐚𝐫𝐲 | THEN. You’re the only survivor among the Mind Flayer’s victims, thanks to your friends - but after the Battle of Starcourt, you find yourself adrift in a sea of nightmares. Until an encounter in the woods with Eddie The Freak Munson offers an unexpected life line and turns your world upside down. NOW. Four months have passed since the winter night you walked out of Eddie’s trailer and his life for good. But when the mysterious headaches and nightmares return full-force and something wicked stirs in sleepy Hawkins, starting a witch hunt against Eddie, you realize that there are two things in this world that might be more persistent than you’d thought: Evil…and love. The story is told in two timelines: the past (after the Battle of Starcourt) and the present (during the events of season 4).

𝐖𝐡𝐚𝐭 𝐭𝐨 𝐞𝐱𝐩𝐞𝐜𝐭 | angst with a happy ending, fluff, smut, it turned into a fix it fic for ST4

𝐒𝐞𝐫𝐢𝐞𝐬 𝐰𝐚𝐫𝐧𝐢𝐧𝐠𝐬 | SMUT (you need to be 18+ to read this story!), angst with a happy ending, attempted assault, bullying, canon-typical violence

𝐑𝐞𝐚𝐝𝐢𝐧𝐠 𝐭𝐢𝐦𝐞 | ~1 hour

𝐂𝐡𝐚𝐩𝐭𝐞𝐫 𝐰𝐚𝐫𝐧𝐢𝐧𝐠𝐬 | SMUT (only read if you’re 18+ years old! virgin!Eddie x virgin!reader), unprotected sex (please stay safe in real life!), mentions of attempted assault, canon-typical gore & violence, blood, mentions of spiders

𝐅𝐨𝐫 𝐦𝐨𝐫𝐞 𝐄𝐝𝐝𝐢𝐞 𝐜𝐨𝐧𝐭𝐞𝐧𝐭, 𝐜𝐡𝐞𝐜𝐤 𝐨𝐮𝐭 𝐦𝐲 𝐦𝐚𝐬𝐭𝐞𝐫𝐥𝐢𝐬𝐭.

𝐥𝐢𝐤𝐞𝐬, 𝐜𝐨𝐦𝐦𝐞𝐧𝐭𝐬 & 𝐫𝐞𝐛𝐥𝐨𝐠𝐬 𝐚𝐫𝐞 𝐚𝐩𝐩𝐫𝐞𝐜𝐢𝐚𝐭𝐞𝐝 𝐚𝐧𝐝 𝐞𝐧𝐜𝐨𝐮𝐫𝐚𝐠𝐞𝐝, 𝐟𝐞𝐞𝐝𝐛𝐚𝐜𝐤 𝐦𝐞𝐚𝐧𝐬 𝐭𝐡𝐞 𝐰𝐨𝐫𝐥𝐝 𝐭𝐨 𝐰𝐫𝐢𝐭𝐞𝐫𝐬 ♡

▹𝐂𝐡𝐚𝐩𝐭𝐞𝐫 𝟏 ▹𝐂𝐡𝐚𝐩𝐭𝐞𝐫 𝟐 ▹𝐂𝐡𝐚𝐩𝐭𝐞𝐫 𝟑

▹𝐂𝐡𝐚𝐩𝐭𝐞𝐫 𝟒 ▹𝐂𝐡𝐚𝐩𝐭𝐞𝐫 𝟓 ▹𝐂𝐡𝐚𝐩𝐭𝐞𝐫 𝟔

▹𝐂𝐡𝐚𝐩𝐭𝐞𝐫 𝟕 ▹ 𝐂𝐡𝐚𝐩𝐭𝐞𝐫 𝟖 ▹ 𝐂𝐡𝐚𝐩𝐭𝐞𝐫 𝟗

▹𝐂𝐡𝐚𝐩𝐭𝐞𝐫 𝟏𝟎 ▹𝐂𝐡𝐚𝐩𝐭𝐞𝐫 𝟏𝟏

[Tuesday, March 25th, 1986. NOW.]

Eddie Munson had always believed in fairy tales.

At first, it had simply been because his old man had taught him to believe in them. Magic potions from silver flasks that smelled like acid and made Eddie scrunch his nose, pixie dust his dad had sold in little plastic bags, the same glittering powder which had carried his mum to Neverland before he’d ever had the chance to remember more of her than the lavender-and-rosemary scent of her dark curls or the tune of her song when she’d hummed. Treasure hunts.

Growing up, though, Eddie had come to the painful realization that it were the magic potions which made his dad so angry at times, that treasure hunts weren’t treasure hunts when the treasure actually belonged to someone else already, and that pixie dust didn’t carry anyone anywhere except six feet under – and the fairy tales had lost their glitter and magic.

Until an old book had resurfaced, a single thread tying him to his mother – and his love for stories had been rekindled by the words on its worn-out, yellowed pages.

His old man had taught Eddie that not all was gold that glittered.

The Lord Of The Rings had taught him that magic existed – between the pages of a book, and in the colorful world of one’s own mind.

And the girl resting in his bed in front of him, motionless but for the steady rise and fall of her chest, had taught Eddie that true love, the one he’d believed only to exist in stories, did exist – at the price of broken hearts.

But that was okay, fine by him, as long as her heart was beating and her chest rising and falling with each breath, Eddie could deal with the pain of a broken heart. That’s what today had taught him. Nothing could be more painful than the though of you being just…gone.

The tinkling melody of his guitar filled the air of his Rightside Up bedroom, the strings now biting his fingertips with every stroke, but Eddie kept playing because for one, he was still scared senseless Vecna would still get you, and he feared he’d climb his walls with nerves as soon as he put the guitar away.

So music it was.

Who would have thought that Sleeping Beauty would be snoozing off her own curse in his bed one day, he added in his mind as he watched you, the gentle flutter of your eyelids, your beautiful features serene.

Just like all those Saturdays you’d napped in his bed while he’d played his guitar for you. The song remains the same.

And the irony of this song of all songs being the one to break Vecna’s curse wasn’t lost on Eddie while his restless mind filled in the lyrics to the melody for what might have been the hundredth time. Someday, love will find you…true love won’t desert you…

If only a true love’s kiss held any power in reality as well.

There were a few tiny white particles left which had caught in the strands of your hair – ashes from the fire, or spores from that strange dark mirror realm he couldn’t tell – but Eddie didn’t dare to reach out and brush them away.

He would play his guitar until his goddamn fingers fell off.

The words you’d sobbed right before unconsciousness had claimed you were playing in his mind on repeat, over and over again as he was trying to make sense of them, of the flames blooming around you like wildflowers in a meadow. His thoughts felt like a ball of wool ensnaring his as he kept trying to disentangle the damn yarn.

“I don’t think you have to keep playing,” Wheeler’s soft voice ripped through the daze in Eddie’s mind, making him start a little before she sat down at the edge of the bed to glance at you. “If you want to catch some sleep, I’ll stay and watch her.”

“’m fine,” Eddie replied, wincing a little at the pain in his throat, the lingering acidic taste of smoke. He’d never been this hoarse in his life, not even after that one gig at the Hideout on a Saturday where Corroded Coffin had played for four hours straight and he’d felt like dying afterwards.

“Thank you,” Wheeler murmured now, her voice strained with the unshed tears in her eyes as they locked on his. “For saving her.”

“All I did was play guitar.”

“That’s not what I meant. After last summer…” She drifted off, the words hanging in the air, and Eddie’s fingers stilled on the strings when Wheeler went on, “She slipped away from us, after Starcourt. She never told us what exactly he made her do, but –“

“Wait. Wait, did – what do you mean, made her do?”

There was a beat of silence as he watched Nancy Wheeler’s face go from confusion to wide-eyed realization. “She didn’t tell you.”

Eddie tilted his head, already feeling his heart sink. “Tell me what?”

“Last year…the Mind Flayer got her. She was one of the Flayed. The only one who made it out alive.”

***

You were floating.

Adrift on a sea of darkness, like a tiny white particle in air of a dead mirror world, carried by the tune of a song.

Peaceful.

Numb.

There was only darkness…and a scent.

Of leather and soap, sweat and…chocolate, mingling with the faint traces of cigarette smoke, a mix that shouldn’t have smelled good but did, intoxicating and so beautifully familiar as it immersed you.

You loved that scent.

It smelled like Saturday afternoons and happiness, of kisses shared beneath a sea of stars.

Of happiness.

Of home.

For a few fleeting moments, you just kept drifting on this melody of calmness, the soft, tinkling tunes floating alongside you on the breeze.

And when the darkness started to fray at the edges, unravelling like a spool of yarn – you realized this tinkling melody immersing you was real, as familiar as the instrument it belonged to.

A guitar.

It all came rushing back to you.

Vecna. The vision. Eddie, alive, playing his guitar and singing for you to break the curse Vecna, Henry Creel, had put you under.

Eddie.

The rest of your senses snapped back to life one by one, like a row of light switches being flipped.

Your eyes fluttered open.

There were band posters plastering the walls, every letter and detail of them engraved in your mind from all the weekend afternoons you’d spent in this room, on this very bed someone had tucked you into.

Eddie’s bed.

And when you turned your head with a soft rustle of the pillow underneath, your eyes fell on the lonely figure sitting on a kitchen chair beside the bed, one knee tucked up, foot placed on the edge of the seat, dark curls falling over his shoulders as his fingers plucked the strings of the Warlock guitar in his hands to fill the air of the small space with a melody, your brain adding in the lyrics you knew by heart, just like you did the mixtape it was on.

Here we stand,

Worlds apart

Hearts broken in two

Two

Two…

“Eddie.” Your voice sounded as if you’d swallowed glass – just like your throat felt – but at the soft sound of it, Eddie’s head snapped up, his hands falling away from the guitar in his lap.

“Jesus Christ,” he breathed, rubbing his face with a soot-stained, trembling hand, “You scared the shit outta me, monster slayer.”

His voice was as hoarse as yours when he murmured the words.

There were tears shimmering in his eyes.

His beautiful umber eyes.

No eerie white robbing the color from his irises, no snapped neck stealing the life from them, no blood streaming down his cheeks.

Vecna hadn’t gotten him. Eddie was alive.

And he looked horrible. As if he’d gone through Hell and back – and the horrified realization hit you that he had.

Ashes and soot were smeared all over his face, the color matching the black of the bruises blooming on his jaw, on his temple and beneath the gash in his eyebrow you’d stitched with the fish hook what felt like a lifetime ago yet had only been hours.

You slowly sat up in his bed, the sheets falling away from your chest. “How long -?”

“Six hours,” he replied, his voice so croaky that it must have been hurting him to speak.

“Have you –“ The lump forming in your throat cut you off as you weakly nodded at his guitar, and a frayed little smile tugged at his lips as he finished, “Been playing guitar all the time? Yup. I mean, the Walkman didn’t help, so…yeah.” The half-smile grew into a timid little smirk laced with mischief when he added, “I’m gonna blame it on you if I ever get sick of The Journey.”

Love, overwhelming love, flooded you at the thought that Eddie had been by your side, playing for you, despite the bone-deep exhaustion shining in his umber eyes as he watched you tentatively now.

Your gaze flitted to the closed door of his bedroom.

You could still feel it; the call of the gate behind this door.

“How are you feelin’?”, Eddie asked softly, placing the Warlock guitar on the ground beside his chair before he grabbed something from the floor to hold it out for you.

It was a bottle of Yoo-Hoo.

“You-hoo should drink,” he said softly – and the sweet gesture, the old joke…it broke the last of your self-control.

You didn’t manage to muster a reply.

The tears started falling while a lonely, choked sob ripped from you, making pain flare in your body to make you curl up on yourself, knees tucked against your chest and arms wrapped around your shins as you let your head fall, as if making yourself small would somehow keep you from falling apart.

All your secrets, those ugly, ugly secrets you’d kept from Eddie…like Vecna’s creepers, they’d been festering, spreading beneath the surface, carving stains of rot to eat away at you, tarnish and choke and throttle until they were done with you, moving on to claim Eddie next, and the rest of your friends. The rest of Hawkins.

By opening that door, you’d sentenced them all to death.

And by rousing Vecna’s anger, you’d sentenced Eddie to a fate even far crueler than death.

“Hey,” Eddie cooed, the mattress dipping as he sat beside you, one leather-clad arm wrapping around you. His tone took on a desperate, light-hearted note as he tried, “You don’t have to drink the Yoo-Hoo, monster slayer. Pretty sure I got a can of Sprite left somewhere, too.”

His attempt to cheer you up, so utterly Eddie, always trying to set you at ease, made the tears only fall harder, the sobs rip through you with fresh force as Vecna’s words echoed in your head.

“Do you truly think your songbird would be singing for you if he knew the truth?”

Yes. Yes, Eddie would have. The boy who’d chosen kindness and compassion when anger and hostility would have been the easy way throughout all the bullying he’d had to endure in his life, all the scorn and mockery and judgement he was still facing simply for being different…you knew it without a doubt that he would have saved you, no matter what.

Eddie had been saving you from the moment he’d ripped Jason off of you that night in the woods, had saved you again from the clutches of another monster despite the cruel things you’d said, the way you’d so thoroughly broken his heart.

Your songbird, struggling in the razor-sharp claws of a cat without even knowing it. And whatever you’d done to anger Vecna…Eddie would be the one to pay the price.

You curled up against him, face pressed into the fabric of his Hellfire shirt right below his collarbone as you wept.

“It’s my fault.” You barely managed to choke out the words between your sobs. “It’s my fault, Eddie. I let him in. I let him in –“

“Ssssh, I know,” Eddie soothed, “I know. You told me – us –“

They rushed back to you, slivers of memories. Shouts amidst the smoke, Nancy, Steve and Eddie calling out your name, your own confession nearly suffocated by the roar of the fire.

“Four gates. Four killings. He’ll tear down the barrier. Hawkins will fall. I opened the door. I let him in.”

He knew. They all knew, now.

And still…Eddie was here, holding you in his arms as you wept.

“It’s okay, monster slayer,” he cooed, “I promise it’s gonna be okay again.”

You shifted, burying your face at the crook of his neck as all the pain, all the pent-up guilt and shame of those past months and the past few hours ever since that revelation of Max’s painting at Skull Rock spilled free like the flood from a dam thoroughly broken.

Eddie held you in his arms, the warmth of his body seeping through the soot-stained fabric of his Hellfire shirt, the scent of smoke and sweat and the water of Lover’s Lake which still clung to him wrapping around you while the echo of his steady heartbeat mingled with the frail sounds of your sobs in your ears and the tips of his curls tickled the side of your face as he rested his cheek against the crown of your head.

“It’s okay. It’s gonna be okay,” Eddie soothed, his voice raw and raspy from the smoke while his fingers drew lazy, soothing circles on your back and your tears kept soaking the collar of his Hellfire shirt.

He was here. The first one of your ugly secrets out in the open, and Eddie was still here. Holding you with such gentleness, as if he’d never let you go.

“It’s not,” you sobbed. “I opened the door for him, Eddie. It’s my fault. Chrissy and Fred and Patrick and Max and you –“

“The good thing about doors”, Eddie said softly, the vibration of his voice travelling through you as you kept your face pressed to the crook of his neck, “Is that they can be closed and locked again.”

“I’m like him. I’m –“

“No.” The gentle vehemence of Eddie’s voice took you off guard as he cut you off, “Listen, we’ve all done shit, ‘kay? Like, Harrington’s been a total douche. I’m selling drugs, for Christ’s sake, and I recently found out that Henderson secretly raised a whole goddamn Demogorgon. And I know you didn’t just, I dunno, rip open some door between worlds and invite Vecna over for tea and biscuits and shit, so however he got you to do it, we’ll find a way to un-do it. We’ll –“

“You don’t know anything about me, Eddie,” you whispered. You knew they’d hurt him, those same words you’d spat at him that November night – but the truth hurt. And it was time for Eddie to finally learn it.

All of it.

You expected for him to pull away, but the protective shield of his arms around you stayed as he breathed, “Yeah, you keep saying that. And I know it’s not true –“

“It is,” you cut him off, voice conquering the sobs still clawing at your insides.

And then it was you pulled away. Out of Eddie’s arms, wiping at the tears with the back of your hand as you scooted farther away from him, because you wouldn’t be able to stomach him pulling away as soon as you’d spilled the final secret.

But you’d made a decision. Had made it back when you’d still been in Vecna’s grasp, and it was a decision you should have made way sooner. Eddie deserved the truth.

It would snuff out everything he still felt for you, all the sparks your cruel words that November night hadn’t been able to suffocate despite all your best efforts. It would set him free.

How stupid you’d been then, to try and keep him away with a lie of indifference when all you’d have needed to do to drive him away from you forever would have been to tell the truth about those two days in summer.

“I did things, Eddie. Horrible things,” you uttered on a choked whimper, forcing out the words before cowardice could take the wheel. “Last summer –“

“I know what happened,” Eddie said softly. “I know that son of a bitch got you. Wheeler told me everything, when you were knocked out. But whatever he made you do, that wasn’t you.”

This trust, Eddie’s unshakable trust in you after all the hurt you’d caused him, was a dagger twisted in your chest all over again.

His beautiful eyes were pleading, shining with such warmth and compassion and tenderness as he watched you tuck your legs against your chest while he stayed at the edge of the mattress, once again cautious to give you space.

For a few selfish heartbeats, you allowed yourself to relish this expression in Eddie’s umber gaze as he watched you, waited for you to go on.

You memorized the exact shade of his irises, like sunlight falling through a glass of rich dark whiskey, memorized the tenderness in his gaze which felt like the first gentle rays of the spring sun caressing your skin after a freezing dark winter.

Memorized all of it, because once the next words had left your lips…it would be snuffed out like the flame of a candle by a storm.

You couldn’t bear to witness when that happened.

Suppressing the sobs, you squeezed your eyes shut.

Your voice was raw and strained, like ice covering a lake, ready to give in and crack at the slightest bit of pressure as you whispered, “Do you remember what I told you about becoming a cheerleader?”

It had been the most beautiful day in October, golden rays of the autumn sun spilling through the foliage of the clearing to paint streaks of chocolate and caramel into Eddie’s curls as he’d sat beside you on the top of the picnic table, the woods behind the sports field having become the twilight zone of your high school lives, the bridge between your worlds. The freak, and – no matter whether branded a slut or not – the cheerleader.

The not-so-good-anymore girl and the good-for-nothing boy.

Minutes later, he’d twirled you to the tunes of I Remember You floating from the headphones of his Walkman, right before that almost-kiss.

“I remember everything,” Eddie’s soft voice tore you out of the memory and back into the reality of the present, of the secret you were going to spill and everything the truth entailed.

“You know, when I joined the cheer squad back in sophomore year, I did it because I thought it’d keep me safe from bullies. Middle school wasn’t…a good place for me.”

“What did they do?”, Eddie had asked.

“I guess it wasn’t anything special. They did what all bullies do. Under the lead of Stacy Campbell.”

“Wait…Wasn’t she…?”

“One of the people who died in the fire at Starcourt. Yes.”

You’d never told him about the day Stacy and her minions had locked you in that supply closet, the hours spent sobbing in the dark. It didn’t matter, anyway – nothing Stacy had done to you had warranted what you’d done to her years later.

“Stacy Campbell,” you whispered. “She made my life living hell. For three years. Every day.” You swallowed against the tears, staying in the safe darkness of your closed eyes. “He made me choose his next victim. I chose her.”

The images were vivid in your mind. The Mind Flayer – Vecna – guiding your hand to grab her blonde ponytail, slam her head against the wall of the shower before she even had a chance to scream. Blood had run down the side of her face, leaving a stain on the tiles, on the blue fabric of her swimsuit. You remembered how you’d thrashed in the confines of the shadow which had locked you in your own mind, had pleaded for him to stop. You hadn’t wanted to do it. She’d been unconscious right away, unmoving when Heather had helped you tie her up with jump ropes and put her into Billy Hargrove’s Camaro while, locked away inside your own head, you’d screamed and screamed and screamed, cries for help nobody would ever hear; a battle lost before it had even begun.

“He made me bring her to him. To the old steel mill where he kept hiding. Building his…his army.”

“I’m only making you do what you always wanted to, little one.”

He’d shown them to you, all the memories of Stacy’s cruelties. The day she’d locked you in that closet, crushed your fingers in the door when you’d tried to escape. The utter helplessness, and the rage you’d felt that day for the first time, something in you breaking to release it.

A lonely sob ripped from you, momentarily stealing your next words as Eddie croaked, “You were possessed –“

“Don’t,” you whispered. You couldn’t stomach this unwavering gentleness in Eddie’s tone, still feeling the warmth of his gaze on you beyond your closed eyes, despite the ugly things you kept telling him. Not for much longer. “It felt good, Eddie. It…it felt good.”

It was as if your insides had turned into those bats, hacking and clawing at you from within as you desperately tried to stifle your sobs to get the next words out. “To make her pay. To see her screaming and terrified for once while I was the one in power. That was me. Not him. All me.”

The words, your tone dripping with the disgust and contempt you felt for yourself, rang through the heavy silence of Eddie’s bedroom, each one of them a thunderclap, too loud when they were barely more than the ghost of a whisper.

And all those clawed, fanged sobs finally ripped out of you, their force making you keel over.

Pain rippled through your body as the sobs shook you, tearing you to pieces while you pressed your face against your knees and waited. For the rustle of fabric telling you Eddie was rising from his place at the edge of the mattress, for his footsteps to retreat as he left and for the words his twin in Vecna’s trance had thrown at you.

All this time…it’s been you. All this goddamn time I’ve been running from monsters when the monster I should’ve run from was beside me all along.

A heartbeat passed.

Two.

There was the rustle of leather you’d been dreading to hear, a shift on the mattress – before Eddie’s hand took yours, gently prying it away from your legs to lace his fingers with yours. The touch of his warm skin against yours made the swarm of butterflies in your belly fly like a burst of confetti, bewilderment and shock warring in your chest as you felt him kneel in front of you on the bed.

And with a voice that hadn’t lost any of its tenderness, Eddie murmured, “Y/N. Please…look at me.”

It was strange, to hear him use your name instead of the nickname you’d come to love so much, lending weight to his plea.

Slowly lifting your head, you heeded it.

Beneath the blur of your tears, your eyes locked on Eddie’s, your heart thundering painfully against the confines of your ribcage with fear of what you might find in those umber eyes – and desperate, overpowering hope.

Eddie’s eyes were swimming with his own tears which had started running down his face, through the ashes still smeared across his cheeks.

And within…warmth. Of a sunny summer’s day.

The calloused pad of Eddie’s thumb flicked over the inside of your wrist in a soothing motion, just like he’d done at Skull Rock only hours ago, the touch fleeting and light and as innocent as the brush of a feather.

“I need you to listen to me now, ‘kay?”, Eddie murmured. “He made you do this shit. None of that was your fault, do you hear me? None of it.” He let go of your hand, both of his slowly rising to settle on the sides of your face, his thumbs catching the tears which kept running down your cheeks, the gesture filled with a tenderness that made your heart squeeze in your chest while his eyes held yours with an intensity nearly tangible in the small space between the two of you. “This son of a bitch has been targeting you for months. He…” Eddie trailed off, his eyes squeezing shut as he shook his head, and you realized that the pain in Eddie’s was for you.

For what Vecna had done to you.

“I know that,” you whimpered. “But I enjoyed it, Eddie.” Your voice had reached its breaking point. He needed to listen –

“And I understand that,” Eddie pressed, despair lacing his tone. “I understand it. Shit, you need to cut yourself some slack,” Eddie breathed, his hands still resting on your cheeks, his eyes swirling with a maelstrom of emotions.

Your eyes fluttered close, his words sinking in, meeting the echo of Vecna’s.

“We are alike, little thief. And you know it.”

“He said I’m like him,” you whispered. “Vecna. He said that’s why he chose me to open the door for him.”

“He’s lying.”

“What if he’s not?” It came out as another strangled cry. “How do you know he’s lying, Eddie? When he left, something stayed behind. And it keeps spreading. Like…like rot.”

A frail sob ripped from you as you barely managed to choke out the next words. “It keeps spreading. I can feel the gate. I feel it and there’s a part of me that wants to go through. That feels like…homesick for this place. I’m scared. I’m so fucking scared and I can’t run because what I’m scared of most is me. So how can you know that he’s lying?”

With a gentle caress, Eddie caught more of your tears, swiping them away as you opened your eyes to meet his again, your body melting into his soothing touch.

“Because he can use your shame against you,” Eddie said softly. “If you were like him, you wouldn’t be ashamed of these feelings. Shit, you wouldn’t care if you were good. The fact that this fucker can use this fear of being like him against you proves that you will never be like him. Wanting to hurt those who hurt us doesn’t make us monsters. It makes us human. And feeling guilt and shame for the part that wants revenge? That’s what makes us good, rather than evil. ‘Cause I bet my ass that fucker never felt a single ounce of guilt.”

He paused watching you, his eyes scanning yours as he waited for his words to sink in, before he added, so infinitely gentle, “And if you don’t trust yourself, trust your family of monster hunters right across the lawn at the Mayfields’, currently losing their shit because they’re so worried about you. They heard everything you said before you fainted. About the door. And not a single one of them, me included, believed that you could be some monster in disguise. Not for a single second. Trust me, okay? Because I know you. You keep repeating that I don’t, but I do, monster slayer. You are not like Vecna. And you’re not alone in this, either.”

You couldn’t speak. Couldn’t move – caught in the beautiful spell of Eddie’s gaze, this fierce trust he still held in you.

And you realized nothing had changed.

You’d finally told him all those things you’d been so sure would drive him away – and Eddie was still here. He’d stayed.

And this time, the tug you felt wasn’t that dark and twisted pull towards the gate beyond the door, but the gentle draw towards this beautiful young man whose song had saved you long before you’d even realized you’d needed saving.

Whose eyes had never lost their warmth for you despite all your ugly truths laid bare, whose trust in you had never faltered even when you’d lost yours. The boy who had been ready to walk into death alongside you because he hadn’t wanted to give up on you.

Your songbird.

And in this moment, you realized that it wasn’t the song Eddie played for you. The only thing which had mattered was that Eddie had been the one to sing it for you.

“We’re gonna make it right again.” His eyes were flashing with fierceness. “We’re gonna shut that door in this son of a bitch’s face and throw away the goddamn key.”

If you told him now that Vecna wanted to kill him, he would still stay.

There was no doubt about it now.

Eddie would stay. And if he stayed…he would die.

Your heart sank again, a stone dropped into a bottomless well.

“He will kill you,” you whispered, “He’ll kill you, Eddie.”

“You know what a guy wants to hear.”

“How are you not freaking out?”, you breathed, utterly bewildered.

Eddie’s thumb grazed your cheek in another fleeting caress as a mirthless chuckle bubbled from his lips. “Oh, no, I am. I’m, uh, freaking out but I’ve kinda been in the middle of a pretty long mental breakdown ever since this son of a bitch framed my sorry ass for triple murder and the town wants to see me burn at the stake. Shit.” He paused, taking a trembling breath. “But…I nearly lost you. And everything else kinda pales against the possibility that I could have. That you could have been gone. ‘cause I…”

His voice broke as he squeezed his eyes shut, his hands falling from your face to pinch the bridge of his nose as he shook his head as if that could somehow chase the thought away. “I can deal with whatever shit is thrown my way. As long as you’re still there.”

You swallowed against the lump in your throat, the wave of fresh tears already brimming in your eyes.

“We’ll figure this out, ‘kay?”

“How?”, you whispered.

“Together.” A timid little smile played on Eddie’s lips. “As a team. The cheerleader and the freak, remember?”

An echo of the words he’d said when the two of you had skipped classes and Eddie had taken you for a hike around Lover’s Lake to escape the relentless bullying Jason’s lies had triggered.

They made your heart squeeze in your chest – with love and longing.

And to your surprise…you believed them. For this beautiful moment, you believed that everything would be okay, because Eddie was here.

“The slut and the freak,” you corrected with a whisper, and Eddie’s smile widened.

“You always tend to forget they upgraded me. It’s the perv and the slut.”

For a heartbeat, you beamed at each other, your heart racing in your chest and giddy warmth surging through your veins, before Eddie’s expression grew serious again. “Alright. So, uh. Before we start…anything else I should. You know. Know?”

You bit your lip. “I burned down the boathouse.”

Eddie gave a curt little nod, before you added, “And I’m about ninety-nine percent certain I burned down the townhouse as well.”

Another nod from Eddie. “Yeah, you nearly burned down my Upside Down trailer as well.”

“Does it freak you out?”

“Uh, I mean, after the past few days? You know you could have told me, right? I mean, you basically told me months ago, ‘cause arson was on your impressive list of crimes against the law but, uh, to be honest I’d thought that involved a bit of good old gasoline and some matches and not, you know…your mind. And even though you accidentally nearly barbecued us, I think it’s very metal. Very Stephen King of you.”

A giggle bubbled from your lips, genuine and so utterly relieved.

Eddie was doing what he’d done for you so many times before. Making you laugh; taking the sharp edge of things and setting you at ease like nobody else could.

“Is that how you fought the monsters?”

“No. I found out about it…yesterday.” It felt like a lifetime ago that Jason and his cronies had found Eddie at Rick’s, threatening to break his bones with the crowbars in their hands and hatred in their hearts. But the fresh bruises marring Eddie’s face, peeking out beneath the soot and ashes smeared there, begged to differ. And so did the cut you’d freshly mended with that fish hook. “At the boathouse,” you added quietly.

Eddie’s eyebrows shot up. “Wait – that never happened before? Like, no accidental flambés? You just set a jock on fire for the first time?”

You nodded, and Eddie let out a little chuckle. “Good. Else I would’ve been a bit pissed that you didn’t burn down the school before O’Donnell’s midterm projects were due to buy more time.”

The way he drawled out the words made your smile widen, before another thought fought itself to the forefront of your mind and the smile slipped. “If they know I let him in…are they –“

“Mad? Shit, no. No, they’re scared out of their mind for you. They’re mad at that fucker, but not at you.”

The relief which flooded you at Eddie’s words was so overwhelming that it robbed your words as you gave him a nod, swallowing back a fresh wave of tears – and with a timid little smile, Eddie tilted his head. “So, uh. Should I start calling you Firestarter now? Is that –“

“No! No. I’m…I’m your- I’m monster slayer.”

There was relief and something else flashing in Eddie’s eyes as they flitted down to your lips now, lingering there for long enough to dissipate any doubt that you were imagining it. It made the butterflies in your chest go haywire.

And for a split second…there was this wild, desperately hopeful feeling that he’d kiss you.

Just like he’d done at Skull Rock.

It was hovering in the air between you, the memory of this stolen, fleeting kiss in the veil of night and the woods, the ghost of it still prickling on your lips to make you wonder if it felt the same for him.

There was this draw pulling you towards Eddie; a light-filled, beautiful twin to the dark and twisted urge to go through the gate…a gravity keeping you close to him like a comet in its orbit around the sun so it wouldn’t get lost in space.

He didn’t kiss you.

Instead, his expression grew serious once more before he announced quietly, “If, uh – if we wanna figure this shit out…you need to tell me what he showed you. In every trance. Every…every dream. What he said. Things that could be important. How exactly he got you to…open the door.”

“What did Nance tell you already? About…about Starcourt.”

“Everything,” Eddie said gently.

You nodded, swallowing as your gaze locked on the faded pattern of flowers on the bedsheets. “At first, there were just the nightmares. Then came the headaches. Nosebleeds. And then…the hallucinations started.” You paused, mind going back to the first time it had happened. “At first, they were…I don’t know. Contained. I would look into a mirror, and he’d be there. In my…in my eyes. Black creepers underneath my skin. And then that night last November, when we…” You trailed off, heat flaring in your cheeks. “There was this door. With a window of stained glass. A bouquet of red roses.”

Eddie’s eyes were wide – and you could see his thoughts racing, trying to connect the dots to answer all the questions you’d left him with that night.

In the past days since Eddie had been forced on the run, neither of you had broached the subject, both of you dancing around the matter – and it had been easy not to come too close. Because Eddie had been too timid, and probably too hurt and scared. And you hadn’t dared.

But now that everything else was out in the open, and only that fateful night left to discuss…the situation had shifted. You weren’t dancing on solid ground anymore; you were dancing over a tightrope. And beneath, a glaring abyss. You couldn’t give him hope.

And you still hadn’t told Eddie that he carried Vecna’s mark, as well. That Vecna wanted him dead because of you and now, after everything, there was no doubt Eddie would stay. Which mean he would walk into certain death. And that was what you needed to prevent. If only you knew how.

You waited for him to broach the subject, to start asking questions about that night you weren’t yet ready to answer as long as you hadn’t figured out a way to keep him out of Vecna’s clawed grasp – but Eddie didn’t. He was giving you time, always so considerate when asking questions would have been his every right after all the things you’d spat at him that night.

Once again, your heart squeezed in your chest as you held his gaze.

“I didn’t know it was the front door of Creel house. I only realized it when I saw it in Max’s painting, back at Skull Rock yesterday.”

“What else did you see?”, Eddie asked cautiously.

I saw you die. Eaten alive by a swarm of monstrous bats long before I knew these things even existed.

“There was someone behind that door. A disfigured hand…A claw. The thing wanted to be let in. And then, there was this…this pull.” A shudder ran through you, the pulse of the gate beyond the bedroom door laced with yours, like a second heartbeat hammering in your ears alongside your own. Like the yank of a leash. “It – he wanted me to open the door. I didn’t. And ever since that night, I’ve seen this door. Every night. In every dream. Until I opened it.”

“Why? What changed?”

You finally glanced back up at him.

You. He used you to trick me. Put you behind that door and made you scream for help because he knew I’d do everything for you. Everything.

“There was someone else behind that door. Screaming for help.”

“Who?”

“You.” You fiddled with the corner of the bedsheets. “I didn’t think. I just ran and opened it and when I woke up, I thought it had just been another nightmare.”

“They never stopped.”

“No,” you breathed. “After…” After that November night when I broke both our hearts. “They got worse.”

There was the softest rustle of leather when Eddie shuffled closer, and his fingers gently laced with yours again on the faded bedsheets – cautiously, giving you the chance to pull away.

“Is that…is that okay?”, he asked, and you gave him a soft nod.

“Yeah.”

It was more than okay. The touch made your skin tingle and sent sparks zapping along your nerves while your eyes flew open to meet Eddie’s.

For a few beautiful moments, you stayed like this, your hands entwined on the sheets, gazing at each other with this flurry of unspoken words in the space between you, your heart racing in your chest with such fervor that you were sure it would leap out of your chest and right into Eddie’s palm.

He still looked at you like this. Like you were the only thing that mattered. Like the world around him blurred when he was with you, just like yours did when you were with him.

There was something timid in the way he watched you now, something anxious in his eyes as he took a breath, opened his mouth –

With a resounding bang, the door flew open, making both of you start as Eddie let go of your hand and whirled around to the door as your head snapped up, but before you could get a single word out, you were tackled into a ferocious embrace that nearly knocked you off Eddie’s bed.

“You’re awake,” Nancy whispered, her hug squeezing the air out of you, her curls tickling your nose, “You’re alive.”

“Not much longer,” Robin’s voice chimed up somewhere from the door, “If you keep throttling her like that, Nance.”

A second pair of arms wrapped around you as Robin plopped down on the bed beside you to join the hug, and over Nancy’s shoulder, your gaze locked on Eddie, who’d scooted to the edge of the mattress to make room for your friends to squeeze in beside you.

Robin was the first one to let go.

“How do you feel?”, she asked, letting herself fall backwards and bumping into Eddie behind her in the process, “Like, do you feel like setting something on fire again? Because the one fire extinguisher we had is empty now so I guess if you set this trailer on fire, there’s nothing we can do.”

“It’s not like there’s a goddamn gate to another dimension in my living room already,” Eddie deadpanned, “But if you do, gimme a shoutout first so I can save my guitars.”

“By the way, the kids are still at the Mayfield’s trailer,” a third voice sounded from the doorway, and you met Steve’s relieved grin, “Fast asleep, and Lucas is watching out for Max so we got a while before Henderson realizes we’re making theories without –“

“You’re discussing stuff without me?!”, a voice chimed up from the door while Dustin squeezed himself past Steve through the door, before his blue eyes met yours and a relieved smile won over the annoyance as he said, “We thought we were losing you.”

The way he said it made fierce, protective affection for the boy warm your heart.

It was easy to forget that, when Will and Barb had gone missing three years ago and everything had started, Dustin and the rest of the party had been kids. Middle schoolers. And while Nancy and you had at least been teens at the time, Vecna had robbed Dustin, Will and the rest of them of a part of their childhood. When they should have stayed up all night playing D&D and telling each other horror stories, they’d been sucked into a deadly game with actual monsters and real deaths.

“Come here,” you smiled, patting the mattress between you and Eddie, “We could use your genius, Henderson.”

“At least one of you appreciates my skills,” the boy grinned with a glance at Steve, who muttered, “Yeah, feed his ego, will you.”

“Steve, not to be rude but we all know that I’m the brain of this party. And you’re the –“

“Dick,” Eddie finished with a nod, earning a glower from Steve and a snicker from Robin as you contemplated, “I’d say he’s the hair.”

“Fist,” Dustin grinned, plopping down on the mattress between Eddie and you, “I wanted to say fist.”

“To be the fist,” Robin crooned, “You’ll have to have won at least one fight.”

“Ha! I did!”, Steve called out, pointing at Robin, “I knocked out that Russian last year.” His gaze briefly flitted to Nancy, who’d been watching the banter with quiet amusement, and a soft smile curved her lips when her gaze met Steve’s, before she noticed you watching her and quickly glanced away again.

“There. I’m the fist”, Steve nodded.

“They drugged us about five seconds afterwards.”

“It doesn’t matter, Robin. I knocked him out cold. I won the fight.”

“And lost a tooth.”

“What’s that smell?”, Dustin asked, wrinkling his nose.

“That’s me,” Eddie said drily.

“You stink.”

“Yeah? I’ve been hunted by a mob, plunged into a cold lake two times, ran for my life, got trapped in another dimension which’s gate is eating my goddamn living room ceiling, and I nearly got burned into a crisp; all in a single night. If I stink, Henderson,” Eddie said good-naturedly, giving the boy a playful slap on the back of his head, “It’s my goddamn right.”

Dustin snickered, righting his cap again as he turned his head to give you one of his wide, infectious Dustin-Henderson-grins. “You should have seen him play. It was metal. Right in the middle of a fucking –“

“Language!”, Steve interjected with the mild annoyance of an overworked dad over the dinner table before he gave Eddie another glower. “He got that from you. You’re teaching him swear words, man. Not cool.”

Eddie opened his mouth for a clapback, but was cut off by Dustin who added, “There was fire everywhere. And Eddie just kept playing and singing while you were pulled to the ceiling and it was scary. So metal.”

The gleam in the boy’s blue eyes made you smile and Steve’s expression turned a little gloomy while Eddie’s gaze met yours, a slight blush creeping over his cheeks beneath the soot and bruises, just as Dustin added, “And Eddie told you –“

“That’s enough, big boy,” Eddie interjected with a playful shove against Dustin’s shoulder that wouldn’t match the pained expression in Eddie’s face, just as Nancy cleared her throat, making you start a little, before you noticed the look passing between Nancy and Robin.

“Told me what?”

“You should really drink something,” Eddie said, grabbing the still unopened bottle of Yoo-Hoo he’d discarded on the mattress, and you took it with a flinch.

“Ew, Yoo-Hoo?” Robin scrunched her nose. “That stuff tastes horrible. Like, that’s not even real chocolate in there. The girl just got Vecna’d, cut her some slack before making her drink that. I mean, who even puts chocolate into water? It’s gross.”

“Thank you!”, you exclaimed.

Eddie gave Robin an incredulous stare. “You all really lack taste.”

Steve tilted his head. “Can I get a bottle of that as w-“

“No,” Eddie quipped.

“Wow. Your customer service sucks. Now I know why you sell drugs instead of ice cream,” Steve deadpanned, and Eddie threw him a before he drawled, “We can’t all hop around in little sailor’s hats, Harrington.”

“Aw, don’t worry dingus, nobody wore it better,” Robin chimed in.

Steve gave her an exaggerated glare. “You, too, Robin? Seriously?”

“It was a very cute little hat,” Dustin grinned.

“Thank you, Henderson,” Steve quipped.

And with warmth in your heart, you realized what they were doing.

That this easy banter was their way of telling you it was okay.

There was a sudden lump in your throat.

They all looked so tired. Soot was smeared all over their faces and clothes, telling you in those six hours when you’d been knocked out, neither of them had had a chance or the mood to clean themselves up as they waited for you to wake, and Steve was still clad in only his pants and Eddie’s denim vest, the bandages wrapped around his abdomen smeared with grime and stained with blood seeping through the fabric.

“What happened in the Upside Down?”, you asked quietly, nodding at the makeshift-bandages.

“Bats,” Steve replied darkly.

And your heart ceased its next beat, your blood freezing in your veins.

“Obviously not normal bats, but killer bats. Upside Down bats.”

“Demobats,” Dustin corrected.

“These little bitches ripped a few pounds of flesh out of me while trying to strangle me to death but we got rid of them.”

“They’re guarding the gates,” Nancy added, “That’s why we were stuck there for a while. We couldn’t go back through –“

“Thought Watergate.”

“Through Watergate, yes.”

Their voices blurred into static, drowned out by the thundering of your heart in your own ears; too fast, to forceful, too loud.

They were real.

Not just some creatures from a nightmare used to terrorize you.

The voices of your friends slipped away, far away, as the memories of four months of nightmares returned full-force, of all the things you’d seen on the roof that November night. The images that had made you break Eddie’s heart.

Wings and talons and teeth pouncing down from the bleeding crimson skies, their shrieks filling the air like a chorus of distorted voices as it mingled with another scream, filled with agony and so horribly, horribly familiar because it was Eddie’s scream, from amidst the storm of these monstrous creatures.

These creatures were real. They existed in this dark mirror place, outside of the realm of your nightmares and hallucinations…and Eddie had met them already. Had fought them…

Too close. He’d gotten far too close already, like Icarus to the sun, the first blazing rays already burning away the tips of his wings.

“Hey,” Eddie’s voice made you snap out of your thoughts, your eyes locking on his in a wave of fresh panic.

He’d left his spot on the bed to kneel in front of you on the carpet, slowly taking the bottle of Yoo-Hoo from you to place it on the ground beside him as his eyes held yours, and Nancy’s arm wrapped around your shoulder.

Eddie needed to go. Far, far away from Hawkins, and from you.

You opened your mouth, but before you could voice all these things, Robin said, “Wait, what are we calling him now, by the way? Vecna? Henry? One? The Mind Flayer?”

“Henry,” Nancy stated just as Dustin and Eddie replied, “Vecna.”

“We’re going to call him Henry”, Nancy said, “Because that’s his name. He’s still human.”

“Ish,” Robin added.

“I’m not so sure,” you whispered, the image of Vecna’s rotting flesh, his spidery, disfigured claws reaching for you engraved in your mind. “He didn’t look human anymore. Not like a living person.”

Nancy bit her lip. “Calling him anything else will only make us fear him more.”

“I dunno about you,” Eddie deadpanned, “But the evil eldritch undead being from a parallel dimension with the power to kill people in their dreams as he sees fit doesn’t exactly, um. Lose its thrill just because the dude’s name is Henry.”

“Thank you for the input, Kate Bush,” Steve quipped, earning another cheeky smirk from Eddie as he nodded at the flash of Steve’s bare chest peeking out from beneath the denim vest while he quipped, “Is there a reason you still look like the love child of a Chippendale and a final girl, Harrington?”

The look passing between the two of them had lost its edge though, the bickering having simmered down to something akin of a good-natured banter that made you wonder what had happened to melt the ice which had frozen the air between Eddie and Steve only hours ago. You guessed running from monsters together did work actual miracles even on the most strained of relationships.

“That’s rich coming from the guy who looks like the chimney sweeper from Mary Poppins,” Steve quipped with an answering nod Eddie’s ash-smeared face, the soot darkening the fabric of his Hellfire shirt beneath the leather jacket, the scattering of ashes and residual spores from the Upside Down still caught in his messy curls.

“Guys, we need to focus,” Nancy interrupted.

“She’s right,” you said quietly, fidgeting with a loose thread in Eddie’s worn-out bedsheets. “Time’s running out.”

Eddie’s time.

“That’s the positive spin I was hoping for,” Steve quipped.

“Tell us,” Robin said softly. “”hat happened with the door you opened, I mean. What Vecna showed you.”

And with a steadying breath, you told them what you’d told Eddie.

About the nightmares, how Vecna had tricked you to open the door with the stained-glass roses to save Eddie. About the draw to the gates, the Upside Down calling out for you and this dark wish to heed its call.

You told them of the house on the Hill and the little boy who’d been Henry Creel, of the horrors beyond the door with the stained-glass roses, of Vecna’s collection of tortured souls and everything he’d shown you; little Henry’s past and the slaughter of his family. How Brenner had found him and the birth of Hawkins lab, of the massacre and brave little El, banishing Henry to the place now known as the Upside Down; the way this mirror realm had warped and twisted his body until his appearance matched the rot in his heart.

“And they were…they were all there?”, Robin whispered when you’d finished, breaking the rattled silence which had settled over Eddie’s bedroom. “Like, their souls?”

You swallowed, eyes closed as you gave a curt nod. “Yeah. Their souls, their consciousness…whatever you may call it. As mutilated as their…their bodies.”

“How many times did the clock in the sky chime?”, Dustin inquired.

It took a moment for you to realize Dustin’s question had been addressed at you, and another few seconds to retract the events in your mind before you whispered, “Four.”

“Are you sure?”

“I won’t forget a single second of this nightmare, Dustin. Four chimes.”

“Why is that even important?”, Steve questioned. “We know that creep has a weird relationship to clocks. Did he, by any chance, tell you why?”

“It scares him. Time scares him, I think.”

Your eyes found Eddie’s. He was sitting cross-legged on the ground in front of the bed, fidgeting with the little chain on the sleeve of his leather-jacket as he watched you. The expression in his umber eyes had dimmed, the smile which had played on his lips faded. He was watching you closely, the concern for you shining in his eyes overwhelming in its intensity.

“Four times,” Dustin echoed. “Max counted four chimes as well.”

“Four chimes make an hour,” Nancy contemplated.

“But what happens then?”, Robin pressed, panic making her voice tremble. “Do we know what happens after the fourth chime? Like, is he telling us that time’s running out?”

“The glass of the clock burst at the fourth chime,” you added quietly, your gaze firmly locked with Eddie’s. Your tether. The lighthouse’s guiding beam amidst the storm.

“What else did he show you?”, Robin pressed.

“Monsters. Spilling into Hawkins. An army of them.”

“Jesus Christ,” Eddie breathed, his voice shaking as hard as the hand he rubbed over his face, wincing as he grazed the freshly mended gash on his eyebrow, “Jesus H –“

“The gates,” Nancy breathed. “We know he’s killing people to open the gates. But why does he need more gates?”

“To send more…to send more monsters,” Robin guessed. “Through the gates. So Eleven can’t lock him out again.”

Eddie was still raking a trembling hand through his hair, sending a soft flurry of ashes and spores falling from his dark curls to the carpet as he shook his head, muted with his panic.

And he didn’t even know yet that Vecna was personally targeting him.

“But to get a whole army of monsters into Hawkins, he’ll need a lot of gates,” Steve assessed from his place by the window. “Like, a lot –“

“Fuck.”

All eyes locked on Dustin, who’d jumped up from the bed. His gaze was frantic as he breathed, “What if that’s what it is. He wants to attack but one gate isn’t enough, and that’s why he needs four gates. And if one killing opens one gate…”

“He’s one killing away from achieving his goal,” Nancy finished darkly.

“No. Four is still not enough,” Steve protested, “For a whole monster creepy-crawly army –“

“No,” Dustin called out, wringing his hands as if he were about to strangle you all with his frustration, “LISTEN to me, for fuck’s sake.”

“Dude,” Steve muttered. “We are listening. You’re just not making sense –“

“Jenga,” Dustin cut him off, nearly shouting the word.

“Game night,” Robin quipped. “I don’t think we got time for that, Henderson. Though I’m more of a Monopoly kind of –“

“JENGA! IT’S LIKE JENGA!”

There was a beat of silence as all of you stared at Dustin, who’d started to pace frantically.

“Okay, big boy,” Eddie said, “Maybe you, uh, should –“

“The tower. The – there is a wall between worlds,” Dustin interrupted, waving his hands, “Picture it like a Jenga tower. You pull away one block, and the tower still stands. You pull away two, it might start swaying a little but it still stands. You –“

“Holy shit,” Steve breathed.

“You pull away four,” Nancy said quietly. “And the tower collapses.”

“He’s been telling us his plan all along. We just never listened closely enough.”

“The earthquake,” you breathed.

“There have been more when we were in the Upside Down. Two more. Makes three earthquakes in total.”

“When the barrier between dimensions is gone, he won’t need any more gates. When there’s no wall, you don’t need to open doors to get on the other side. And when he kills his fourth victim, opens the fourth gate, it will make the Jenga tower – it will make the wall between dimensions collapse,” Dustin went on.

“Jesus fucking Christ –“ Eddie breathed, burying his face in his hands.

You waited for the realization to hit you like a punch to the gut, for terror to grip you – but you were only tired. So incredibly tired of fighting and panicking. And even with everything at stake, nothing could compare to the horror of losing Eddie. Of Vecna making true of his threat. His promise.

“Okay, we need a plan,” Nancy said as Dustin plopped down on the rug beside Eddie. “We need to kill Vecna before he can kill his fourth victim. Go back to the Upside Down –“

“No,” Eddie said vehemently, “Nope. No way.”

“We don’t even know if we can kill him,” Dustin threw in. “And before we can come up with a plan –“

“We need to figure out what’s wrong with me,” you said quietly, your voice as dark as the feeling in your chest.

“I wouldn’t have put it that way, but yeah,” Robin agreed.

At the sound of your voice, Eddie let his hands fall away from his face, glancing up at you as your friends started talking, all at once, their chorus of voices too loud as it mixed with the threat of Vecna’s voice playing in your head on repeat, a broken record.

I’ll take your songbird.

It was too much. Too much to grasp, and before you did anything else, you needed to get Eddie away, somewhere far away where not even Vecna could ever find him, and you needed to talk to Eddie alone to tell him that, make him understand –

“Stop!”, Eddie’s sudden voice rose over the noise, effectively cutting them off as all pairs of eyes locked on him, all of them surprised by his sudden vehemence save for Dustin.

“That’s not how you plan things,” he said. “Not at all. It’s chaos.”

Steve let his gaze roam over the mess in Eddie’s room, the assortment of clothes and music tapes and paper full of scrawled chords and doodles and books strewn over every surface, before he assessed, “Talk about chaos.”

Eddie rose to his feet, fierce determination replacing the utter terror which had been reigning over his expression in the past few minutes, the change like a light switch being flipped when he shifted into Dungeon Master mode.

“We can’t come up with a plan to defeat him if we still don’t know what we’re dealing with.”

Steve scoffed. “We do know. The dude is a psychopathic maniac with superpowers who wants world dominion after a little girl whipped his ass and banished him.”

“And what then, Harrington?,” Eddie drawled darkly, “Punch him in the face? As far as I heard, you couldn’t even do that with Billy Hargrove. What do you wanna do, send the little redhead in to sedate Vecna?”

“Shoot him,” Nancy said, her voice dark and even.

Eddie raked a hand through his curls – in exasperation this time, instead of panic.

Robin huffed. “I’m equally amazed and scared that your solution for every problem is a shotgun, Nance. And deeply impressed. But in this case, I’d like to hear what Eddie has to say.”

“While going in back in there to try and kill him right away might be noble and heroic,” Eddie assessed with a wave at the gate casting its eerie glow through his open bedroom door, “It’s stupid as Hell. There are moments for heroism. This one’s not one of them. There are too many questions we need to answer first.”

“Dude, this isn’t a game of D&D,” Steve muttered.

Eddie tilted his head, eyes narrowing. “I am aware, Steve.” He drawled out the name in this lilting way he sometimes spoke with, before he added, “Because if you die at the D&D table, you’ll be gone for the rest of the campaign. If you die at Vecna’s gaming table, you’ll be gone forever. So if you plan ahead during a game of D&D, shouldn’t you do the same thing when your actual life is at stake?”

“He’s right,” Dustin said, and Robin nodded in vehement agreement.

When Eddie looked at you, there was a flash of determination in his gaze, a quiet understanding passing between the two of you.

Together. As a team.

Without another word, Eddie grabbed something from his nightstand before he plopped down on the carpet in front of you again, placing the thing on the rug.

It was a black notebook.

“What’s that?”, Steve inquired, sounding a little suspicious.

Not batting an eye, Eddie replied, “Oh, just. You know. My satanic bible.”

There was a beat of silence before you snickered, and the sound put the widest beam on Eddie’s lips to make your heart soar in your chest, as the two of you stared at each other – until the moment was broken by Dustin’s giggle and the sound of Steve clearing his throat. Eddie opened the notebook and started to flip through the pages.

They were filled with notes and doodles, with the most intricate drawings of monsters and dice as Dustin let out an ecstatic squeal before he jumped off the bed to sit beside Eddie, the marvel in the boy’s eyes that of a child at Christmas morning.

“That’s your campaign notebook,” you breathed.

“He never lets anyone see his campaign notebook,” Dustin breathed in awe, reaching out to touch the booklet, but Eddie gently swatted his hand away.

“Only for Dungeon Masters,” he admonished half-heartedly as he kept flipping through the pages, “You’re not a Dungeon Master, Henderson.”

“Hurry up, man,” Steve muttered, crossing his arms in front of his chest as he threw Eddie’s back an annoyed glance, “We don’t have all night.”

Eddie stopped at an empty page, ringed hand smoothing out the page before he grabbed the pen clipped to the back cover.

“You might be the slayer of monsters,” Eddie drawled with a grin up at you, drawing out the words to a musical lilt, “But I’m used to making them dance like little puppets on my strings.” He wiggled the fingers of his free hand in the air before he glanced back down at the page. “Okay, so. Uh, we got your superpowers, obviously.”

The pen flew over the page as Eddie doodled a little flame into the left corner.

“Then we got Vecna slash the Mind Flayer slash – yeah, you know.”

“Henry,” Nancy corrected pointedly.

“Henry,” Eddie echoed with a nod.

Silence fell over the group, filled only by the soft scratch of the pen on the paper, the persistent call of the gate only you could hear, its force weakened as you watched Eddie.

With growing fascination, you watched the movement of his hand while he guided the pen across the page with skilled, quick strokes, the rings on his hand glinting to trigger the memory of how it had felt, the brush of their smooth metal on your skin when Eddie’s calloused hands had wandered over your body, sending you into ecstasy.

Even with the exhaustion carving shadows underneath his eyes, the bruises nearly as black as the soot still smeared across his pale features, Eddie was beautiful. One of his hands shot up to card fingers through the curls of his bangs falling into his face, the little chain on his leather jacket’s sleeve tinkling softly with the motion, and while he kept drawing with his other hand, he poked out his tongue like he always did when he focused on something. It was so him, that the surge of love flooding you momentarily stole your breath away.

“Henry…and the Upside Down” Eddie muttered, ripping you from your silent reverie, and your eyes quickly flitted down to the finished doodle of a crowned skull, looking more like the design for an actual tattoo than a quick doodle. He was truly skilled.

His head lifted as he glanced up at you, a soft smile playing on his lips when he said, “And we got you.” He added a little sword in the opposite corner of the page. It made you smile.

“Since when did you know you could do the fire-thing, by the way?”, Robin interjected.

“Since yesterday.”

“When you burned down the townhall?”

“Nope. When I burned down the boathouse.”

“Actually,” Eddie grinned, “She didn’t burn down the boathouse, she set Chance on fire.”

“Dude,” Steve commented.

“You’re a superhero,” Dustin exclaimed. “Like El.”

“I’m not.”

“It’s pretty fucking awesome,” Robin smirked, “To set fire with your mind. On our next movie night, we could make smores without ever having to make a fire.”

“There won’t be any next movie night,” Steve said grimly, “If we don’t hurry.”

“Can you move objects as well? Like El?”, Dustin asked, excitement widening his eyes.

“I’m pretty sure I can’t. It’s only fire, as far as I can tell.”

“If you only know since yesterday, maybe you can do more.”

“I’m sure I can’t.”

“Dustin’s got a point,” Nancy said, “If you’ve only known since yesterday –“

“I’m not like El, okay?!” They fell quiet, watching you as you took a deep breath, before you repeated, calmer this time, “I’m not like El. I don’t know where this is coming from but I know I’m not like El.”

“Henry is like El,” Nancy mused.

“But what do we even know about superpowers?”, Robin inquired, narrowing her eyes on the doodles in Eddie’s notebook. He was tapping the pen against the page, chewing his bottom lip as he narrowed his eyes on the drawing of the flame. You could basically see the wheels churning in his mind.

“We know El has been born with her powers,” Dustin said. “And so has Henry.”

“So does it work, like, I dunno, the Force?”, Eddie wondered, giving Dustin a thoughtful glance.

“What’s the Force? What’s he talking about?”

Robin groaned. “Steve! Star Wars?”

“Dude, how are you even working at a video store?”, Eddie wondered, throwing Steve a glance over his shoulder.

“It’s honest work,” Steve quipped, “Opposed to selling drugs.”

“It’s not that honest if you keep recommending movies you haven’t even watched,” Eddie retorted with a drawl.

“It’s the one with the teddy bears,” Robin groaned, and Steve’s face lit up as he nodded in recognition.

Nancy sighed. “Can we focus?”

“The ability to control the Force,” Eddie said slowly, as if talking to a child, “Is something you’re born with.”

“And since El and Henry have been born with their powers, and we don’t know anyone who somehow acquired them,” Nancy deduced, “It’s safe to assume you were born with them.”

You cocked an eyebrow. “Don’t you think I would have known sooner if I was?”

“Maybe you didn’t notice,” Eddie wondered.

“I’m pretty sure I would have noticed things randomly going up in flames around me.”

“Okay, then…what triggered it?”, Dustin wanted to know, leaning forward.

“Panic.” For Eddie. It had always been your panic for Eddie to trigger this strange power.

Robin snorted. “It’s safe to say you weren’t born with it, then. I guess in those three years of Upside Down business, you’d have noticed if your panic had set something on fire.”

“We could put it to the test,” Dustin proposed.

Steve scoffed. “Okay so what, we’ll just, like, hold her at gun point? Is that your plan, Henderson? That won’t work. She knows we’d never hurt her.”

“It was never panic for myself,” you corrected quietly, cheeks burning. “The first time, it was when Jason and his friends locked me up at the townhall after they found out about Eddie hiding at Rick’s. The second time was at the boathouse, when they…when Jason wanted to hurt Eddie. And the third was in my trance.”

“What did he show you?”, Robin asked quietly.

There it was again, this horrible image which had burned itself into your mind like the letters set into a tombstone, the newest addition to your own collection of horrors. Eddie’s eyes, the white of freshly fallen snow, tears of blood running down his cheeks.

“Eddie’s death,” you whispered.

There was a beat of silence, before Steve quipped, “Wait, so we’re gonna need to hold Eddie at gun point? Because yeah, I can do that.”

“Okay, we’ll – stop. Nobody is going to be held at gunpoint,” Nancy interjected, earning her a raised eyebrow from Robin who commented, “Says Miss Gunpoint.”

“You held me at gunpoint,” Steve protested with a flirtatious little smirk at Nancy, “But you won’t hold him at gunpoint?”

“You were acting like a jerk,” Nancy replied softly, the barely suppressed smile on her lips as telling as the beet-red blush on her cheeks before Robin interjected, “Have you seen Eddie’s huge brown doe eyes? We can’t hold him at gunpoint even if we wanted to. That would be like threatening Bambi.”

You couldn’t tear your gaze away from Eddie, whose eyes were wide as he stared at you, their intensity making your skin prickle, a flurry of unspoken questions swirling in the umber of his eyes alongside all the emotions shining there – but the moment was broken when Dustin called out, “Will! Will got powers”, making Eddie start a little with the sudden exclamation.

“He can feel the Mind Flayer. Vecna.”

“Henry.”

“The point is,” Dustin went on, ignoring Nancy, “He can feel him.”

“That’s a connection, not a superpower,” Nancy protested. “It can be used as a superpower, but it definitely doesn’t count as one.”

“’kay, let’s focus on connections then,” Eddie said slowly, before his gaze met yours and his voice took on a gentle hue. “Do you still feel it?” It was a softspoken question, his tone timid as if he were worried to distress you. “The gate, I mean.”

You gave him a slow nod, before you whispered, “All the time.”

You could feel Dustin’s blue eyes on you as he inquired, “What does it feel like?”

“Alive.”

Eddie furrowed his brow, tilting his head as he waited for you to go on.

“It’s…it’s like a heartbeat. Not the gate in itself, it’s more…it’s more where it leads.”

“The Upside Down.”

“Yeah.”

There was a beat of silence as Eddie nodded, and you went on, “As far as I can tell, Will never wanted to go back to that place.”

“He didn’t,” Dustin agreed. “He was scared of it.”

“I don’t think speculation will lead us anywhere,” Nancy groaned.

Robin patted her back. “We’re in the brainstorming phase.”

“We’ll never move out of the brainstorming phase at this rate,” Steve quipped. “We’ll be stuck in the brainstorming phase when Vec- Henry sends his monsters.”

“No, sorry. I can’t do that,” Robin muttered, “I can’t call this guy Henry. It’s…he’s Vecna now. I’m going to call him Vecna.

Dustin glanced up at you. “Do you have any idea why Vecna needed you to open the door?”

“I didn’t even know I was opening a door for Vecna when I did it,” you said quietly. “I didn’t know.”

“But why?”, Dustin wondered, “Why did he need someone to open the door, and why did he choose you?”

“He chose me because El and Will were already too far away, in Lenora. He said it himself. And I guess he needed someone who at least had a connection to him. And since I was…I was flayed…”

“Your connection to him is the same as Will’s,” Dustin said.

You nodded.

“I’m confused,” Steve announced.

“You always are,” Dustin retorted.

“I get that he needs an open gate to come into our Hawkins,” Steve said, giving Dustin an indignant glower, “But – physical gates. What did you open? Where?”

“That’s actually a good question, dingus.”

“Thank you, Robin,” Steve retorted indignantly. “I’m just saying, why did he even manage to target you in the first place, because I was pretty sure as long as he was locked on the other side, he was powerless.”

There was a beat of silence before Dustin muttered, “Shit. I never thought about that.”

“What else did he tell you, monster slayer?”, Eddie asked softly, tilting his head a little as he caught your gaze.

It was only then that you noticed what had escaped you before, because you’d hardly ever been anything but alone with Eddie. But now that the others were around for longer, you realized that, while he was charming and kind and sweet with everyone, this special kind of softness in his voice, his eyes…it was meant for only you.

You closed your eyes.

“When I’m done with you, when I have taken back what is mine, what you stole from me – I will take your songbird.”

Your blood froze with the realization of the glaringly obvious variable which had slipped your notice.

“Little Thief,” you whispered, realization barreling through you with such force that you jolted from the bed as it hit you. You needed to move. “Oh my god. He kept calling me Little Thief. He said I stole something from him.”

“Stole,” Eddie repeated slowly.

“I thought he meant his victory. We all stole his victory from him. We stopped him, and I thought he was angry with me because he was angry with all of us but…” You trailed off, pressing the heels of your hands over your eyes, watching the pattern of tiny white dots dance through the darkness of your closed eyes as your mind was going a mile a minute.

“What if he meant something else?”, you whispered, eyes flying open to look at Eddie.

You could feel it, passing like a spark; the idea flashing in Eddie eyes as he froze mid movement when realization hit you like a truck, the final missing piece of the puzzle falling into place.

“You stole something from me. Something valuable. And before I take it back…I’ll steal the most precious thing from you, little thief.”

“The most precious thing,” you breathed, your voice barely more than a susurration in the air as you echoed Vecna’s words, “He told me I stole the most precious thing from him.”

“Monster slayer,” Eddie’s soft voice made your head snap up. He’d risen from his spot on the ground, standing in front of you now as his umber eyes scanned your face, his dark curls standing on edge from all of his nervous raking-through them, his eyes wide, realization taking root in his mind. He looked breathless, as if he’d run a marathon. “What you said to me earlier. About something…something staying behind. Do you remember the moment he left, last summer?”

[Thursday, July 4th, 1985. THEN. THE BATTLE OF STARCOURT.]

The world had descended into flames and agony, the heat on your skin unbearable, the cacophony of voices blurring around you as you screamed, as this thing inside your head screamed.

All you wanted was for it to stop. Stop stop stop stop STOP “STOP STOP STOP STOP STOOOOOP!”

“Higher.”

“It’s killing her!”

“That means it’s working.” The boy’s voice was barely audible over the noise of your tormented, broken screams.

“LET GO! LET ME GO! LETMEGOOOO!”

“Scratch out their eyes,” The thing in your head commanded. “Tear the skin from their bones, rip out their hearts –“

There were horrible images in your head.

NO.

And something happened.

The creepers around your mind…they started to loosen.

Their chokehold around that dying spark that was left of you was fading as if these vines of shadow were hurting.

As the heat was burning it away.

Scorching it, melting it.

And that ember which was left of you flared to life with hatred for this writhing, creeping shadow which had locked you up in your own mind and had forced you to do its evil bidding.

It had taken something from you. Something you would never get back.

Now it was your turn to take something in return.

There was a girl’s angry scream lacing with your own in the scorching air as an invisible force ripped the darkness out of you – and you lashed out at this vile, dark shadow in your head, making it screech and hiss and writhe in your mind’s grip.

You wanted to hurt it like it had hurt you, tearing and ripping at it as it was forced out of you, black mist rising from your lips as the contorted scream of this thing turned into your own.

The pillar of black smoke bursting from your lips and into the air with a shrill noise, like nails on a chalkboard, burned itself into your memory as someone loosened the ropes around your wrists, a pair of arms pulling you backwards, and a familiar voice soothed, strained with the sob she was holding back, “We got you. It’s gone. He’s gone – right?”

“Yes,” El replied, the back of her hand swiping at the blood which was drip-dropping from her nose. “Gone.”

And this time when the darkness crept in at the edges, it was a peaceful one.

Of exhaustion and relief, as your quiet sobs stole your voice, and the darkness stole your sobs.

Yes, the monster was gone.

But it had left something behind, something you’d ripped away from it.

A sliver of a shadow, a dark fingerprint on your soul. A stain, black like tar, soaking through the fabric of your very essence.

Spreading.

[Monday, March 25th, 1986. NOW.]

It crashed over you like an icy wave, knocking you off your feet and making you sink to the floor, slowly, as Eddie’s hands shot out to grasp your elbows, holding you as he slowly knelt in front of you.

The memory had been buried underneath all the pain of this moment, a thousand razor-sharp blades ripping your body and mind to shreds as they’d burned the black smoke out of you.

As you’d lashed out at this twisted, evil thing in fury and hatred.

Something had stayed behind.

You did this to yourself, Vecna had said. Because you had.

“I wanted him to hurt the way he hurt me,” you whispered, eyes locked on Eddie’s, concern and bewildered realization brimming in them. “When he left, I…I think I lashed out. And something…ripped away. From him.”

“Holy. Fucking. Shit,” Robin’s whisper filled the stunned silence.

And with this one missing piece, the whole puzzle came together, all the lose pieces falling into place.

“You stole some of his powers,” Eddie breathed, an incredulous laugh bubbling from his lips, “Jesus Christ, you stole some of his goddamn powers, monster slayer. That’s the most badass shit ever.”

“And when I’m done with you, taken back what is mine – I’ll take your songbird.”

Vecna’s words, playing on repeat in your head, drowning out the chaos which had erupted at the realization, your friends talking all at once, their words blurring to background noise.

“Hey, you okay?”, Eddie murmured, the smile slipping at the sight of whatever it was that was shining in your eyes.

No. Things were as far from okay as they could get.

Misinterpreting your terror for being overwhelmed, Eddie shouted, “Stop!” – and to your surprise, the others obliged again, the havoc dying down at once to make room for another crestfallen silence.

“That’s why I can feel the gates,” you breathed. “That’s why part of me wants to go there.”

Amidst all the panic, there was a wave of temporary relief flooding you, because…there wasn’t something fundamentally wrong with you. This part of you that wanted to go to the Upside Down, that purred at the sensation of the dark pulse of the gates thrumming through your blood, this homesickness you were feeling for this horrible mirror realm…this, at least, wasn’t you…was it? Did it belong to you now?

“What does that mean about the gates?”, Dustin blurted, and Eddie stretched to grab his notebook from where he’d discarded it on the floor, the hem of his Hellfire shirt riding up to expose a sliver of his stomach, revealing a glimpse at the path of his happy trail dipping below the waistband of his ripped jeans –

Maybe there was something fundamentally wrong with you.

At least the tug in your chest at the brief glimpse of Eddie’s happy trail wasn’t whatever part you’d ripped away from Vecna’s power but your own damn mind.

Silver linings.

You rose on shaky legs to place yourself back on the mattress, between Robin and Nance, watching as Eddie grabbed the pen Dustin extended for him.

“’kay, let’s sum this up. Monster slayer stole a part of Vecna’s power –“ he connected the doodle of the flame with Vecna’s skull, and then your sword, “Which means that part of his power is the bridge between you and him.” Another line, this one to connect the sword with the doodle of the skull to form a triangle. “That’s why he’s been able to target you.”

“Which leaves the connection to the gates,” Dustin added, watching as Eddie drew a door into the middle of the triangle.

“So he needed Y/N to open a door for him,” Nancy summed up, “Because…why?”

Eddie looked up from the notebook, gaze flitting between all of you as he said, “You said when the gates closed, his uh, hosts always died. Right?”

“Yes.”

“Only that Y/N wasn’t a host. The part she stole from him – that wasn’t possession, because she made it her own by ripping it off of him when he left.”

“Are you trying to say –“

“It’s hers now.” Eddie’s eyes found yours. “It belongs to you more than to him, but – it’s like a bridge between the two of you. A living part of him remaining here –“ he tapped the pen at the sword symbol, “While the rest of him is in the Upside Down. It’s…it’s like –“

“A relay!” Dustin called out, and when there was silence as all of you stared at him, he let out an exasperated sigh. “Really? A relay? Never heard of that?”

“Just explain it then, Dustin,” Nancy replied with equal exasperation.

“Fine. It enhances RT signals. Think of Vecna as an RT unit. He’s in the Upside Down, and his signals can’t reach our Rightside Up Hawkins because the wall between worlds is too thick for them to pass through and he’s too far away. But if there’s a relay on the other side to enhance the signal, it will be strong enough.”

“So I’m his relay,” you breathed as Eddie added, “That’s how he managed to target Max and the others. The part of him you stole enhanced his signal.”

“Exactly,” Dustin nodded, his happy little grin a little out of place as scientific enthusiasm got the better of him.

“That’s what the door was,” you breathed. “Not an actual gate, but a connection between us. And by opening it, I became his relay.”

“Exactly!”

“Dustin, you’re aware we’re still talking about murder and not a science fair, right?”, Steve admonished, sounding a little like Ted Wheeler.

Eddie’s eyes met yours. “And with every victim he killed…”

“…more gates opened,” you finished.

He nodded. “And that’s why your powers only acted up two days ago. They’re still connected to the Upside Down, to their origin.”

“Which means if the gates closed, I couldn’t set things on fire anymore.”

“Holy fuck,” Dustin breathed. “We cracked the code.”

“I’m getting a migraine,” Steve murmured.

“Steve didn’t crack shit,” Robin chuckled.

“Wait,” Dustin spluttered, “Wait, does that mean you could tap into the hivemind?”

“In my trance, I could,” you said slowly, “But I’m pretty sure it doesn’t work like that.”

“We still need to see whether we can train you.”

“Train me? When? Vecna is going to trigger the apocalypse in what could be hours, I don’t have time to become a Jedi.”

“A what? What’s that?”

“Star Wars,” Robin and Eddie admonished once more, and this time, the glare Steve threw Eddie was murderous. “You know, I’m not being a bitch about you obviously having no clue about basketball, Munson.”

“Okay,” Nancy announced, rising from her place on the bed to walk to the window, “With everything we know now, the basics of the plan still stand.”

“Yup. The plan,” Eddie echoed, flipping the notebook shut with a soft clap as you furrowed your brow.

“It’s easy,” Dustin explained, turning to you. “Before you went unconscious, you told us that Vecna is Henry is One so he’s human, he’s like El.”

“Just in the grown-up evil child-murdering psychopath version,” Robin added helpfully.

“Which means when he uses his powers, he goes into a trance-like state. He has to enter the Void. Like El. Which makes him vulnerable.”

“And killable,” Steve threw in.

“And killable,” Dustin agreed.

“The killable part is the most important,” Robin added.

Nancy turned away from the window, her gaze finding yours, “So the plan is simple. Max will ditch Kate Bush and make herself vulnerable, baiting him.”

Your mind was reeling.

“She what?! You can’t –“

“We already discussed that,” Dustin interrupted.

“The little redhead won’t take no for an answer,” Eddie mused darkly.

Nancy went on, “And when he’s in the Void to get to Max, we’ll draw the bats away from his lair and kill him.”

“Like sleeping Dracula in his coffin,” Dustin grinned. “And we’ll drive the stake right through his heart.”

“Wait,” you breathed, “The bats. How –“

“I’ll divert them,” Eddie said, giving you a proud little smirk, “With my guitar. Lure them away long enough for team Stab Dracula to succeed. No more running. I’m done being Eddie The Banished. Time to become Eddie The Brave.”

“No.” It came out as a hollow whisper – but Eddie’s timid little smile vanished as if you’d slapped him.

You felt frozen. As if your blood had turned to ice as shock and panic and terror flooded you in a tidal wave, pulling you under, robbing the air from you and making your heart race with the despair of the forlorn as Eddie’s death cries, the soundtrack of your nightmares, rang through your mind, loud as a bell.

I’m going to take your songbird.

And your songbird was about to present himself to the cat on a silver platter.

“No,” you breathed, repeating the word, “No, you can’t do that.”

The hurt in Eddie’s eyes throttled your words of explanation as despair clawed its way up your throat.

“You think I can’t be the diversion ‘cause I haven’t slain a monster before?”, Eddie challenged quietly.

“That’s not what I said.”

“It sounded pretty much exactly like you thought it.”

“It kinda did,” Steve said quietly.

“It’s not what I meant.”

“Okay, I mean, he’s the diversion,” Steve interjected, raising his hands, “It’s not like he’s going in there with us, I’m sure he’ll handle it.”

You knew Steve well enough to tell he hadn’t been thinking about the impact of his words, focused on soothing your own terror – but you could see those words had struck home with Eddie. You remembered all the times he’d scolded himself for running away when Chrissy had died, the shame he felt about leaving her there even though there had been nothing he could’ve done to help –

“I fought those things before,” Eddie said quietly, averting his gaze from you – and that was the worst. “A few hours ago.”

“Well, four of them,” Robin added with a little wince, “Not, like, the swarm of hundreds you’ll be running from once they get to you.”

You could feel the bile rising in your throat, the culmination of images, one crueler than the other, was pelting down on you with the force of a hailstorm. You were going to be sick. You were –

“Please don’t. You can’t do that,” you choked out, and the betrayal in Eddie’s eyes when they finally met yours again was a knife through your heart. “Eddie –“

“So, uh, what else should I do? Stay on the playground with eleven-years-old Erica Sinclair?”

“Leave. You’re wanted for murder. Leave Hawkins and –“

Even Steve scrunched his nose in a muted wince as you blurted the words, panic stealing every sense and filter because you needed to keep him safe, needed to keep him away from the Upside Down and Vecna and his killer bats.

“I’m done running.” Eddie’s voice wasn’t harsh, or sharp. Just determined. As if he wanted to prove himself.

“Okay,” Nancy interrupted, her voice a little too loud, a little too high-pitched, “I think we’re all tired and done for today.”

“Done?”, Dustin echoed, “We need to fight!”

“And to do that, we need to have some rest and prepare ourselves.”

Dustin deflated a little at Nancy’s tone.

“You know, that’s the exact same mistake you keep making when playing D&D,” Eddie said softly, climbing back to his feet and discarding the notebook on the bed beside you before he gave Dustin a playful shove on the head, “Always charging ahead no matter the consequences ‘cause you’re so goddamn impatient.”

It sounded good-natured – and it sounded worried.

Dustin glanced up at Eddie, and the admiration in the boy’s eyes warmed your heart, though the feeling subsided as you saw the strange expression in Eddie’s eyes when he sat on the bed beside you. He didn’t look angry or even hurt – he looked curious.

“Are you having a book club session over here or why are you taking so long?”, a voice chimed up from the door.

“Erica,” Nancy said, “Wait, is everything okay with Max?”

“She’s asleep,” the girl retorted, crossing her arms in front of her chest with her usual not-taking-any-bullshit-expression. “So?”

“We cracked the code,” Dustin grinned.

“Okay, so when we actually want a bit of rest before tomorrow…”, Nancy began, and Robin was quick to fill in her pause, a smirk on her lips, “I guess we’ll need to guard the gate.”

Eddie eyes widened. “Do you think anything will try to…get through tonight? Like, like the bats or shit?”

Eyebrows raised, Dustin said, “I don’t think we need to – “

“Guard it all together,” Nancy cut him off.

Robin’s smirk widened. “Definitely not, good point, Henderson.”

“That’s not –“

“We’ll split the night shift into teams so the rest will catch up on sleep in the meantime, and a shower.” Robin angled her head to sniff at her shoulder, scrunching her nose. “Because we stink.”

“Yes, you do,” Erica added helpfully.

“Yeah?”, Steve muttered, “You go through a lake to another dimension and run from monsters that want you as their starter course and we’ll see how good you’ll smell.”

Erica gave him a side-eye. “And are you gonna be whining about that for the rest of the night like a crybaby, Steve? ‘Cause then I’d like to not be teamed up with you. Are we done chit-chatting teams now or is this a damn game night?”

“Okay,” Nancy breathed, pinching the bridge of her nose, “Just…let’s not make a big deal of it. The kids will stay at Max’s and the grown-ups will guard the gate in three-hour-shifts. Y/N and Eddie, you can take the first shift.”

You met Eddie’s gaze, shining with something you couldn’t quite pinpoint yet, and that frizzy, bubbly giddiness returned to your chest full-force at the thought of being alone with Eddie again. And relief, because three hours hopefully would be enough to convince him to leave and save himself.

“Robin, we’ll take the second one,” Nancy went on, “And Steve can watch the kids over at –“

“No,” Steve interrupted, “I’m not playing babysitter again.”

“We’re not babies,” Erica shot back, “I’m eleven.”

“Good,” Steve exclaimed, running a hand through his hair before he plopped down on the bed. Right between you and Eddie, half-sitting on Eddie’s lap who scooted farther to the side to make room with an annoyed mutter of, “Great. Thanks, dude,” which Steve commented with, “Well where am I supposed to sit, on the ground?”

“Well, right now you’re sitting on my lap.”

“Well, you could scoot over and make room for one more. It’s a big bed.”

Eddie quipped, “Are we back to the problem how many people plus your ego will fit?”

“I’ll be joining Y/N and Eddie,” Steve announced, wiggling a little in his new seat between the two of you, forcing Eddie to scoot away even farther to begrudgingly make room, “Guarding the gate. It’ll be fun.”

“Which gate will you be guarding?” Robin asked with a sardonic smirk.

Her words set your cheeks ablaze, and you found yourself glad for now that Steve had placed himself between Eddie and you.

Louder, with a shit-eating grin on her face, Robin drawled, “Actually, dingus, somebody’s gotta watch the kids and I figured it was my turn. I’d have proposed you and Nance could team up so you wouldn’t have to babysit for once.”

The glance Robin gave you wasn’t as subtle as she might have thought.

Nancy’s eyes screamed murder at Robin before they caught Steve’s, and in the periphery of your vision, you could see Eddie trying to catch your gaze while you were having a hard time ignoring those big brown eyes because your face still felt as if it would go up in flames any second now.

But once again, the draw to Eddie was stronger, robbing every last ounce of your self-restraint. When you raised your head and turned to look at him, he asked, “You okay with this? If you wanna go join the party over at red’s trailer and get some rest –“

“No,” you replied quickly, just as Robin announced, “Monster slayer here slept through the past six hours, I’m pretty sure she’s the most well-rested one of us all.”

“Good,” Nancy announced, striding out of Eddie’s room, “Let’s go over to Max’s, then, and have some rest.” With a glance at you and Eddie, she added, “Thanks for taking the first shift, you two. See you in three hours.”

Three hours alone with Eddie.

Three hours to tell him the final truth about Vecna’s plot of revenge and talk him out of this stupid plan.

While Robin threw you another not-so-subtle wink, Steve looked as if he couldn’t decide whether to feel annoyed by the thought of Eddie and you being left alone for three hours, or giddy at the prospect of spending the same amount alone with Nancy, and the resulting expression in his face would have been almost comical, hadn’t your own nerves turned into a jangled mess.

You wanted to be alone with Eddie, so much so that it felt like a painful eternity as everyone made their way to the trailer’s front door – but you knew that this time, there wouldn’t be any more stolen kisses like the one at Skull Rock, in blissful ignorance of everything else that had happened.

Fiddling with the hem of your sweatshirt, you watched as Erica, Robin and Steve stepped into the sunset outside, painting the sky above the Forest Hills trailer park in shades of vibrant oranges and crimson that reminded you of the skies in Vecna’s lair, sending chills down your spine.

Nancy was the last one to exit the trailer.

Her hand on the doorhandle, she turned around, throwing you a meaningful glance over her shoulder.

You knew she was thinking about the things she’d said to your earlier at the shore of Lover’s Lake.

“To find someone who makes you so happy, despite everything else going up in flames…some people wait a whole lifetime for this kind of thing and yet never find it. So if you found that with Eddie…you should hold on to him for dear life.”

The tiniest of knowing smiles was tugging at the corners of her mouth when she walked away, pulling the front door shut behind her.

The soft click of it was too loud in the sudden heavy silence.

And you were alone with Eddie.

And the gate.

It was gaping right above your heads, stretching between you; the rip between worlds.

The echo of its dark pulse vibrated through your bones. Come see me. Come join me. Come home, its dark whisper echoed alongside every beat – but Eddie’s presence behind you held so much more power, sending your mind into overdrive as you were reeling with nerves, catapulted back into a glittering November night which had started with hope and happiness, and had ended in shards and tears and heartbreak, right in the very spots you were standing right now.

Which cruel irony, to have said and done all those things that night in order to keep Eddie far away from the Upside Down and its horrors, only for it to have sucked him right into the middle of this whole mess. All this pain to keep him out of harm’s way and yet harm had found and followed Eddie Munson like a malignant shadow.

Back to square one.

“So, uh, you hungry?” Eddie’s hesitant voice made you turn around, “I could scour the kitchen for dinner, I’m pretty sure we still got a can of stew somewhere.”

“Yeah.” You scrunched your nose a little at the stench lingering in your hair, on your skin, every thread of fabric in your soot-stained sweatshirt; a mix of lake water, sweat and smoke. “Or maybe I should take a shower first.”

Eddie let out a half-hearted chuckle.

“Yup. Sinclair’s right, we reek.”

“You more than me, though,” you teased softly, and a playful little smirk lingered on Eddie’s lips when he retorted, “Yeah. Took a hike through a realm with lots of nasty shit.”

“Together with Steve The Hair Harrington.”

Eddie’s grin widened. “I specifically meant Harrington. But, uh, monsters were there, as well, as you know. I’m allowed to stink.”

“You are.”

“Entitled to it, if you will.”

“The most metal smell,” you agreed.

Eddie snorted. “That’s the smell of several mental breakdowns, but since Max told me what the two of you’ve been up to in the meantime, I’d wager the cops were having a harder time than I did.”

At his words, you laughed.

The sound had grown as foreign to you as the feeling which had caused it.

The last time you’d laughed, genuinely laughed, had been that November night before everything had fallen to pieces.

At the sound of it, Eddie’s mischievous smirk fused into a full-blown beam, as radiant as the spring sun, before he said softly, “I missed that so much, monster slayer, you’ve noooo idea. Your…your laugh. I’m glad you didn’t lose it despite...” He gestured vaguely at the gate.

At his words, giddiness rushed through you to make your pulse flutter and your heart race – but in the beat of silence which followed, Eddie’s smirk faltered again, all the leaden anxiety beneath the light-hearted façade shining through as he glanced down and fiddled with the clasp of his bracelet. “Uh, you got ten minutes.”

At your confused blink, he elaborated, “The shower. There’s, um. Ten minutes of hot water. Then it gets freezing. Sorry.”

“No, it’s…ten minutes is enough.”

Neither of you moved to increase the distance.

The air was laced with all the unspoken words of the past four months and the past few hours, floating in the air between the two of you like the particles in the Upside Down, a strange kind of static sizzling in the air while the kiss you’d shared at Skull Rock hung over the two of you like a ghost haunting an abandoned mansion.

Your gaze left his eyes to travel to the gash on his eyebrow peeking out from the soot and the curls of his bangs.

“We should clean that cut,” you said softly.

“Should I grab my uncle’s whiskey?”, Eddie chuckled softly.

You snickered. “I think soap will do just fine this time.”

“You’re a sadist.”

“I’m a realist.”

“Same thing,” Eddie smirked as you walked past him into the trailer’s tiny bathroom, gesturing for him to follow you.

You felt light-headed – and light-hearted, realizing now that all the secrets which had been weighing down your heart, locked up there and hidden from Eddie…you’d set them free. Had opened the door to their cage and let them go, and the feeling of relief that stayed behind, of knowing that nothing had changed in the way Eddie was looking at you, filled you with the feeling of floating like a feather, after you’d been drowning in them for so long.

It had felt like resurfacing from a freezing lake, right after oxygen would have run out and your lungs filled with water to suffocate and drown you in those depths.

Eddie flipped on the lonely lightbulb that dangled from the ceiling before he plopped down on the edge of the bathtub as you proceeded to soak a towel under the tap, heart already speeding at the prospect of having an excuse to be close to him again.

The memory of Eddie’s arms wrapped around you while you’d sobbed only an hour ago, the way he’d painted soothing patterns on your back while resting his chin on the crown of your head, not caring that you were soaking the collar of his Hellfire shirt with snot and tears…you shook it off, focusing on spreading soap on the sodden towel before you turned to Eddie.

“Can you –“ you began, but Eddie already raked his fingers through the curls of his bangs, brushing them away from the cut, and the towel raised in your hand, you stepped closer, coming to stand between his legs.

“If you tell me this is gonna burn, I’ll make an unapologetic fire-joke,” Eddie warned with a soft little grin, his eyes timid as he followed your movement, closing his eyes before the edge of the sodden towel could graze the cut.

His pained little grimace at the contact made your heart bleed for him all over again – and your anger at Jason and his cronies flare before you pushed it back down.

While you softly dabbed the towel at the mended gash to clean the soot from the seams of the wound, Eddie said quietly, “Robin, um…told me about the townhall meeting.”

There was a beat of shaken silence. “Did she.”

“Yeah.”

“It didn’t do any good,” you said quietly, watching a droplet of soapy water slowly run down Eddie’s temple, collecting some of the ashes smeared at the corner of his eye before you caught it with the towel, and Eddie’s eyes fluttered open to meet your own.

In the dim bathroom light, the beautiful umber shade of his irises seemed even darker as he scanned your face.

“It was brave of you,” Eddie murmured. “To tell them about Jason.”

You swallowed against the sudden lump in your throat, at a loss for words.

I did it for you, you wanted to tell him, but the words were stuck in your throat.

“You know, you look a little like a chimney sweeper, too,” Eddie changed the topic with a tilt of his head, the ghost of a soft smile playing on his lips as he rose from the edge of the bathtub.

A quick glance in the mirror above the sink proved him right.

Your face was a soot-stained as Eddie, a few lost flakes of ashes or spores clinging to your own hair just like they did with Eddie’s, your eyes bloodshot from all the crying.

Eddie’s gaze met yours in the mirror before he glanced down, and with a tentative motion, he raised his hands to place them over your own, still clutching the towel.

The touch of his rough palm against the back of your hand made your skin tingle in the best of ways, and your breath hitched in your throat as Eddie’s other hand gently pried your fingers open to take the towel from you as he murmured, “Your turn?”

It was a question more than a statement, and his gaze was searching as it held yours.

You gave him a nod, and Eddie reached around you to pat the empty space on the bathroom drawer beside the sink, gesturing for you to sit down, and with the swarm of butterflies going haywire, you obliged, pushing yourself up to sit on the wooden surface while you watched Eddie wash his hands over the sink, scrubbing away the soot from his fingers before he grabbed a fresh towel from the drawer beneath.

There was a beat of companionable silence, filled only by the low gushing sound of water and the soft tinkle of the chain on the sleeve of Eddie’s leather jacket against the porcelain edge of the sink as he held the towel under the tap, waiting for the fabric to soak.

“’kay,” he murmured, stepping towards you, the towel raised in one hand, brushing an exceedingly unruly curl away from his face. You parted your legs so he could position himself between your knees, and your heart did a backflip in your chest only the most skilled cheerleader would have been able to master when Eddie gave you another timid little smile.

A whole choreography of somersaults followed when he leaned closer, close enough for his breath to fan across your lips, and you couldn’t tear eyes from him as Eddie’s fingertips gently grazed the side of your face to brush away a few stray strands, before slowly tilting your head a little upwards.

The touch was a tender twin to Jason’s violent one, you realized. Where Jason’s fingers had dug into your skin hard enough to hurt when he’d forced you to look at him at the boathouse, the touch of Eddie’s fingertips on your jaw was as gentle and light as the brush of a feather, giving you the chance to shove him away any time.

For the ephemeral span of a heartbeat, Eddie’s dark gaze flitted down to rest on your lips, the kiss you’d shared at Skull Rock in the veil of the spring night only hours ago hovering between the two of you like a ghost in a haunted mansion, present in the slim space between you, mingling with your breaths – and for the beautiful span of that moment, you waited for Eddie to kiss you again.

For his soft lips to brush against yours, steal your breath away again – but he didn’t.

Instead, he started cleaning the soot from your right cheek, the wet towel brushing over your skin in gentle motions, and your eyes fluttered closed.

For a few moments, you let yourself be immersed in the peaceful quiet which settled over the two of you, filled only by the steady sounds of your breaths as you relished the sensation of the warm towel against your skin, the proximity to Eddie, standing between your legs. So close that you could smell the sweat and the smoke on him, the faint traces of Lover’s Lake clinging to his hair, his skin, the stained fabric of his once-white Hellfire club shirt.

It would have been easier to just slap some cold water into your face over the sink and be done with it – and the fact that Eddie had offered to clean you up, and the way he was doing it in the most gentle way, the strokes of the towel on your cheeks and the sides of your face like caresses, harbored a whole new kind of intimacy. Unlike the kisses you’d shared and the things you’d done on the roof of his trailer, but just as beautiful.

When Eddie traced your jaw with the towel, you angled your head a little further to give him better access – and winced as he brushed over the spot below your chin, making Eddie pull away.

“Did that hurt?”

“A little,” you said, eyes fluttering open as Eddie’s gaze wandered down to that spot on your jaw, his fingertips grazing your skin while confusion was replaced by something sterner you’d only seen once before in his eyes, in the night you’d met. When he’d ripped Jason away from you. Anger.

And you realized that Jason’s forceful grip must have left a bruise.

“I never wanted to actually punch someone,” Eddie said darkly, “But if I ever meet that son of a bitch again, I think I’ll break his fucking nose. In case you didn’t wanna do it yourself.”

“He would have broken every bone in your body but you draw the line at giving me bruise?”, you asked, not exactly sure whether you’d meant to be gloomy or teasing.

Eddie’s expression was one of grim determination. “Yeah. I do.”

The cold shard of anger melting from his eyes again when they met yours, he raised the towel once more to continue cleaning your other cheek.

For a moment, you just watched him, utterly caught up in the way his dark lashes fluttered against his cheeks when he blinked, the focus as he wiped the ashes from your face while there was still soot on his own, covering the smattering of bruises.

Beyond the bathroom, you could still feel the thrumming pulse of the gate – but the vibration had lost its edge, the call its urge. Because with Eddie only inches away from you…the draw towards him was so much stronger. Sunlight cutting through the coldest night.

And before your eyes could stray down to his lips, so damn close to yours, you blurted, “What else did Robin tell you?”

Eddie chuckled, his breath ghosting over your lips, making them prickle. “Oh, uh. Just that you’re nosy.” The soft tease in his voice, the lilt in his tone a familiar melody, didn’t help calm down your racing pulse. Our your racing mind. “And that I’m a dufus.”

You snickered. “Yeah, that sounds like Robin. What else?”

There was a tiny beat of silence before Eddie replied slowly, “She, uh…she told me you knew I was innocent right from the start. That you were the one who insisted on searching for me.”

“And I found you.”

He let out another low chuckle. “You hit me with your car.”

“Which counts as finding you,” you snickered.

There was a beat of silence, the words drifting through the slim space between the two of you, a shared smile growing stern before Eddie added with the softest murmur, “She also told me to fight.”

“Honor and glory?”, you teased softly.

“I always thought honor and glory were incredibly overrated, outside of D&D.”

“Then what else would there be worth fighting for?”

“Well, uh. A princess, maybe,” Eddie said slowly, and your heart ceased its next beat, the seconds ticking by as he waited for your reply.

“And would you? Fight for a princess?”

“I’m not a knight in shining armor, remember?”, Eddie said softly, “So, no. I don’t care about princesses.”

There was a deep, desperate, sinking feeling in your chest, spreading like black ink in water – before Eddie added softly, “Though there’s…uh. There’s someone I’d fight for, though.”

“There is?”

“Yeah,” Eddie breathed. “Shit. There’s this weird girl who puked all over my shoes. And then proceeded to turn me into the most miserable drug dealer in Indiana.”

Your eyes fluttered open, meeting Eddie’s as he murmured, “Though that’s okay ‘cause I always wanted to be more than just her dealer, anyways. Like…a dude she dances with in the woods. Or a dude she dances with in the woods. Or even…even a distraction.”

You swallowed against the tears as Eddie averted his gaze for a moment.

“Or a hero, for that matter,” he added on a breath, before his lips curved into a bittersweet smile. “A girl I’d follow into Mordor when the Shire is burning and who still has no goddamn clue what that even means ‘cause she didn’t read the goddamn books.” Eddie’s eyes were glittering with barely suppressed tears as they found yours again and he whispered, “Though I don’t think she even needs a hero ‘cause she slays monsters in her free time. Pretty badass, huh?”

“Yeah.” It came out as a susurration, your voice breaking beneath the tidal wave of emotions, of love, so much love, for the songbird with the dark curls and the dark eyes and the heart of gold beneath the leather and denim and tattoos.

“Who believed in your innocence,” Eddie added on a final breath, “Even when the rest of the world came at you with torches and pitchforks.”

Even though she broke my heart into as many pieces as there are stars in the November night sky. He didn’t need to voice those words – they were evident in the expression swirling in his umber eyes as he watched you tentatively, waited for your reply.

“You were never just a distraction, Eddie.” It came out as a broken whisper, filling the slim space between the two of you, the tip of his nose nearly brushing yours.

He swallowed back the lump in his own throat before he croaked, “Then what was I?”

A maybe. An almost. The most beautiful what-if, because you knew, with all your heart, that Eddie Munson was your Forever if you let him.

But nothing had changed since that November night.

If anything, you now had confirmation about your greatest fear becoming reality.

You’d seen how Eddie’s story would find its cruel final chapter.

Some stories weren’t written to have a happy ending, no matter what you’d trade for the chance to grab the pen and rewrite the stars mapping Eddie’s path – but you could send him on another one.

Leading far, far away from Hawkins. And from you.

And when, if, the plan succeeded and Vecna was defeated and Eddie safe…maybe he would still want to be with you then.

But until then, he needed to stay away.

“You can’t go back in there tomorrow,” you breathed, your voice having reached its breaking point while your words made something dim in his Eddie’s umber eyes, a light you’d seen shattering within them once before already. “He’ll kill you.”

“He might.”

“Listen to me,” you pleaded softly, “I know you believe you have to prove that you’re not a coward, but you don’t. You don’t need to prove you’re a hero. You already are one, Eddie.”

“That’s what you think this is about?”, Eddie said softly. “That I’m trying to prove something? Shit, I’m no hero, I know that. The only time I’ve ever been brave was back in there ‘cause I can’t…” He cut himself off with a sharp inhale as the first lonely tear rolled down his cheek, leaving a glittering track in its wake as it smeared the ashes on his cheeks before he shook his head, his trembling left hand shooting up to rake his fingers through his curls, the metal of his rings catching the dim light. “Shit,” he whispered, “This…this son of a bitch hurt you. He’s been hurting you, again and again, and he won’t stop until he’s stopped, and that’s why I’ll go back in there tomorrow to divert these nasty things. Not to prove anything. But to make sure Wheeler puts that goddamn bullet through his heart so he’ll never, ever lay his fucking hand on you again.”

His words rang in the air between the two of you, your heart racing so fast that you feared it might burst from your ribs any second now.

“He wants you, Eddie. Vecna wants to hurt you. That night when he showed me the door for the first time, on the roof…He showed me something else, too.” You swallowed against the lump in your throat which threatened to throttle you before you could get the words out, and your hands folded over his, trembling one, clinging to the towel as if it were a lifeline.

The tears were falling down your own cheeks now in hot rivulets. “He showed me the bats. They were…it was a whole swarm. Hundreds of these things, hailing down on you and…and you screamed –“ For the span of a trembling inhale, you squeezed your eyes shut against the onslaught of images. “I thought if I let you go and made sure you stayed far away from me, you’d be safe. I didn’t know it was Vecna, back then. All I knew was there was something on the other side, watching you. Wanting to kill you.”

Your voice broke at the word, shattering into tiny little pieces.

When your eyes fluttered open, Eddie’s eyes, those beautiful umber eyes, were wide, his chest rising and falling with shallow, rapid breaths as he stared at you with tear-soaked shock and…hope.

Seconds ticked by as you watched him grasp what you’d just told him, the words hovering in the air between the two of you like the spores in the Upside Down, mingling with the cruel echo of Vecna’s voice in your head.

“And when I’m done with you, taken back what is mine – I’ll take your songbird. I’ll break him, bone by bone. And when I’m done, I’ll shatter his mind the way you shattered his heart, little thief. And maybe then…I’ll put him out of his misery.”

“I stole the most precious thing from him,” you whispered. “And he wants to punish me for that by taking the most precious thing from me.”

The sob which had been clawing at you broke free like a bird from its cage, momentarily rendering you speechless as your hands fell away from Eddie’s to clasp in your lap.

“That night last year on the roof,” you said, swallowing against the lump which was strangling the words with the sheer force of your emotions as the truth of that night was set free.

There was hope, so much hope, glittering in Eddie’s umber gaze while he waited for you to go on.

“Just…I want this to…count,” Eddie had told you that night in-between kisses, a smattering of stars forming a silver crown around his wild curls, “I want this to mean as much to you as it means to me.”

“It counted,” you whispered. “All of it. It meant…it meant everything, Eddie.”

“You wanted to save me,” he choked.

“That’s all I ever wanted. That’s why you need to leave. Please. Because if you come with us tomorrow…he’ll kill you. I can deal with seeing it happen every single fucking night as long as I can open my eyes and realize it wasn’t real and you’re still there. But I can’t…”

With the sobs ripping through you harder now to cut you off, you buried your face in your hands, all those horrible images coming alive in your mind again. Of those bats and Eddie’s death cry, his blood coating your hands and the light snuffed out of his beautiful dark eyes.

The sensation of Eddie’s hands folding over yours, gently prying them away from your face to make you look at him, sent a shockwave through you, intensifying when Eddie’s gaze met yours.

All the warmth, all the tenderness and adoration for you were shining in his tear-filled eyes, the emotions blazing there as clear and bright as the neon letters on a billboard ad. Eddie was still looking at you the way he always had, the way he’d looked at you when you’d been underneath him that night.

The despair in his eyes, the wild hope, the bewilderment and heartbreak and devotion stole the breath from your lungs.

“I love you, Eddie Munson,” you whispered. “I always have, and I always will. And I can handle whatever Vecna’s got in store for me as long as I know you’re safe and that’s why I need you to leave tonight.”

The words floated into the tiny space between the two of you, mingling with your breaths as for a heartbeat, Eddie just stared at you, his own tears streaming down his face now to mingle with the ashes and grime.

And finally…Eddie kissed you.

It was funny, how Vecna, a god of his own making, was so scared of time, so set on freezing it yet still not powerful enough to achieve this goal – when Eddie was holding the power to stop time in a single, featherlight brush of his lips against yours.

And this time when Eddie kissed you, there were no more secrets between the two of you, no more hiding. This time, he kissed you, all of you, all the light and the dark and the grey spaces in between.

A soft sigh spilled from your lips into the kiss, a breath you’d never even known you’d been holding – and the delicate brush of Eddie’s lips turned ravenous.

Where the kisses you’d shared beneath the November night sky had been hesitant at first, clumsy and timid, with Eddie holding back, so scared to hurt you, with your own residual terror from Vecna’s first vision settled in your bones…there was nothing hesitant, nothing timid about this kiss now.

It was fierce and desperate and so utterly tender all at the same time when Eddie’s lips moved against yours, making all the pandemonium and horror of those past days, months, fade into sweet oblivion.

A kiss to stop the world from spinning and make your heart sing a tune solely meant for Eddie while his hands found their way up to gently cradle your face and angle your head to deepen the kiss. You wrapped your legs around him, pulling him closer to where you were still sitting on the drawer as your hands snaked up the fabric of his Hellfire shirt to lock them at the nape of his neck, burying your fingers in his soft curls to make him arch into the touch with a breathless little moan that made heat flare through your body in response.

Eddie tasted of the salt of your tears mingling with his, of ashes and smoke, the waters of Lover’s Lake and sweat and him, and you’d never get enough of it. The passion of Eddie’s kisses ignited sparks in your chest, in your belly, spreading along your nerves like the sizzling glimmer travelling along a fuse as you pressed closer, the calloused pads of his thumbs brushing over your temples in a smooth caress to catch the tears that were still streaming down your face. Of relief, and love – and fear, the festering fear that Vecna would make true of his promise and take Eddie.

Tell me this is real, each of Eddie’s feverish kisses seemed to beg as one of his hands wandered down over the column of your throat, the pad of his thumb gently grazing the point of your racing pulse while his teeth grazed your bottom lip, Tell me you mean it.

I love you, you answering sigh told him as you pressed closer, the grasp in his curls tightening as you opened your lips to taste him. I love you. I’m sorry. And I love you.

Not in your wildest dreams had you dared to imagine this, right now – Eddie knowing all the darkest parts of you and still kissing you with such devotion and tenderness, his feelings for you unwavering, infusing each of his kisses with all the love and loss and heartbreak of those past weeks and months.

It was so easy, to start again where things had ended that November night.

As easy as breathing.

As easy as it had been to fall in love with Eddie Munson in the first place.

And you knew, with all your masks stripped, all your walls torn down and secrets on display, you didn’t want to waste a single second more.

Slowly, you pulled away from the kiss to catch your breath, the tip of his nose brushing yours as he chased your kiss before his eyes fluttered open and deep, rich chocolate met your gaze with an intensity that could have knocked you to the ground hadn’t you already been seated.

Unspoken understanding passed between the two of you as you decided you wanted to strip yourself in every way possible for him. And after all the truths Eddie had learned about you today, letting your clothes follow suit felt only right.

Your eyes never leaving Eddie’s, you reached down to grab the hem of your sweatshirt, the fabric sticky with sweat and lake water as you slowly pulled it over your head, watching Eddie’s eyes widen a little as he swallowed when you let the clothing fall to the tiled floor.

The air of the tiny bathroom was cool as it brushed over the bare skin of your arms, your chest; with only your bra left to cover you now.

Eddie’s hands found their way to your waist, warm palms settling on your skin to pull you closer for more of those intoxicating kisses that left your mind dizzy and put the sun in your chest and a smile on your lips, turned every beat of your racing heart into a love song written for Eddie, the movement of your lips against his the lyrics only he could understand.

When Eddie slowly let his rough palms wander up your sides, the pleasure of his touch made you arch your back to pressing closer against him, and your own hands roamed over his chest, dipping underneath the lapels of his leather jacket, wandering up to his shoulders –

The jacket was gone in a heartbeat, falling to the floor as Eddie shrugged it off to answer your unspoken question, and your hands found the hem of his Hellfire Club shirt, the gentle tug on the fabric another unspoken plea he heeded without hesitation, momentarily breaking the kiss before the shirt joined the rest of the clothes on the floor, the grimacing red demon face grinning back at you from the heap of fabric.

There was heat flaring in your chest, in your whole body, as you looked at Eddie now.

His hair was ruffled where your fingertips had raked through the curls, sticky with grime and sweat, a few stray strands of his bangs standing on edge from pulling the shirt over his head, and you took a few heartbeats to just stare at him in all his glory, his chest bare and the rest of his tattoos on full display. A spider right below his collarbone, and a demon face on his chest above his heart – before a painful wince escaped you as your eyes roamed down to the bruise on his ribs where Andy Warren had hit him with the crowbar only hours ago, momentarily stealing the spotlight.

“Does it still hurt?” A dumb question.

“Shit, yeah,” Eddie chuckled softly, “But I really couldn’t care less about that right now.”

With a smile, you shuffled a little closer to the edge of the drawer, your fingertips tracing the outline of the spider, wandering down to the demon’s grimace and farther, following the soft outlines of his ribs to his stomach, fingertips wandering over the trail of the v-lines dipping from the lines leading to the button of his ripped jeans as you watched with avid fascination how his breath hitched beneath the caress of your fingertips, the touch light as the brush of a feather as you let it wander down the dark dusting of his happy trail to the spot where it dipped below the waistband of his pants.

“Does that tickle?”, you asked softly, and Eddie snickered.

“Among, uh…other things.”

“Any more tattoos I don’t know of?”, you teased, meeting Eddie’s gaze, burning yet timid as it rested on you with an intensity as palpable as a caress, making your skin burn in the best of ways, tiny flames licking at your skin.

His smile was playful when he replied, “You’re gonna have to look for yourself. If – if you want,” he added quickly, looking as flustered as you felt in this new situation.

You slowly jumped down from the drawer and reached down to undo the button of your jeans before you peeled the sticky fabric off of yourself underneath Eddie’s burning gaze – and when the jeans were gone and you were bare before him save for your underwear, the way he was looking at you, as if you were the most beautiful girl in the whole world…it made sparks explode in your chest to rival every Fourth Of July Firework.

Still smiling, you chewed your bottom lip before you turned around, your back to him, looking at him in the mirror. “Help me with my bra?”

“You sure?”, Eddie asked softly, and you gave a timid little nod.

“Yeah. Never been surer, actually.”

Through the mirror, Eddie gave you the sweetest smile before his eyes flitted down to the clasp on your back, curls falling into his face and his long dark lashes casting shadows across his soot-stained cheeks.

He truly was beautiful.

Before you could voice the thought, though, the brush of Eddie’s fingertips over your back robbed your words at the sensations travelling through your nerves.

Your heart skipped its next beat as slowly, relishing each fleeting second, Eddie leaned closer to press the softest of kisses to the nape of your neck, testing the waters as his hands slowly roamed down your sides – and at the bliss-filled little shiver his kiss elicited, your hands shooting out to grab the edge of the sink, Eddie murmured, “Tell me if you want me to stop, ‘kay?”

“Hell no,” you whispered, arching your head a little as Eddie chuckled, his breath ghosting over the sensitive skin at the nape of your neck before he placed a second kiss to that spot to steal a gasp from your lips.

It spurred him on – and in the mirror, you watched as Eddie trailed a path of slow, lingering kisses down your spine, leaving goosebumps in the wake of his lips, the sensations racing through your body to stir heat in your core while his fingertips worked to undo the clasp your bra.

And when the garment fell to the floor, leaving you bare before him, Eddie gently spun you around, his hands settling on his waist as he took you in, and you slowly rid yourself of your panties, letting them fall to the tiles and stepping out of them before you raised your head to meet his gaze once more.

The heat of his umber gaze made your bare skin tingle as a sudden bout of insecurity hacked its claws into you – but upon the expression in Eddie’s eyes, brimming with so much warmth and affection and awe as he took you in, every residual kernel of insecurity was dissipated like mist in the rays of the morning sun.

“You’re so damn beautiful,” Eddie breathed, the rasp in his voice betraying his arousal as much as the impressive bulge in his pants, “Shit. I feel like I’ll drop dead every second now.” The timidness in the smile on his soft lips mirrored your own, an unspoken question hovering in the slim space between the two of you.

Still so sweet and considerate, still waiting for your permission to touch you even when you were naked in front of him.

“If you faint,” you warned with a soft smile, “I’ll have to take that shower alone. And I really wanted to share those ten minutes of hot water with you, Eddie.”

The smile turned into a radiant grin. “I better not faint, then, huh?”

“You better not,” you agreed with a murmur as you stepped closer, watching Eddie’s lashes flutter as you gently let your hands roam down his belly, fingertips following the soft line of his happy trail for a second time as you listened to the soft hitch of his breath, felt his muscles twitch beneath your caress, before your fingertips found the clasp of his belt, and your lips found his for another searing kiss.

You could feel how Eddie kept restraining himself, holding back to let you set the pace, keep you in control as you worked to open his belt, the button of his ripped jeans, before your thumbs hooked into the waistband to rid him of the pants and boxers all at once, Eddie’s hands coming up to help with the task at hand.

And just like that, he was naked as well, save for the rings on his fingers, the bracelet on his wrist and the guitar pick on the necklace around his neck.

Now it felt as if you’d faint before he could because the sight of Eddie, utterly naked, was definitely one to behold.

“Like what you see?”, Eddie teased softly, and his shyness, so opposed to his usual confident self, made giddiness bubble in your chest.

“Hell yes.” Meeting his eyes, there was a beat of silence as you just took each other in. Stripped of every layer, allowing yourselves to be as vulnerable as humanly possible in every way there was.

“You’re beautiful,” Eddie murmured. “I…I mean it. In…not just hot. Like, you’re hot. So damn hot. But you’re so fucking beautiful, monster slayer.”

The heat in your cheeks was one of utter fluster as you reciprocated his shy smile, taking his hands in yours.

“So are you, Eddie Munson.”

There was relief shining in his dark eyes upon your words, and you wondered how many times he’d doubted that.

For a heartbeat, you remembered the cruel words people had uttered about Eddie that day in the cafeteria when Jason had started spreading his lies about the two of you.

“Did you hear what Jason said she let that freak do?”

“Gross.”

“Maybe the freak’s got some hidden talents underneath these ugly clothes.”

“Wouldn’t ever be enough to make up for his ugly face.”

“I mean it,” you said fiercely. “You’re the most beautiful person I’ve ever seen, Eddie. And…” you smiled, “I’m relieved I can finally ogle you in peace because it was getting really hard not to openly stare at you at all times –“

You were cut off when Eddie’s lips crashed on yours again, the words morphing into a happy little sigh spilling into the kiss while together, you tumbled into the bathtub-turned-shower, the curtain tinkling softly as it brushed your side before your spine met the tiled wall, your hands coming up to cradle Eddie’s cheeks and pull him closer to deepen the kiss while one of his hands left its place on your waist to turn on the water.

You let out a pleased little gasp as the warm spray pelted down on your bare skin, droplets of water running down your body and soaking your hair and washing away all the grime and sweat as Eddie kept kissing you with a fierceness and reverence that sent your senses spinning and chased everything else from your mind but the feeling of Eddie, of his bare skin pressed against yours, every movement of his muscles, every hitching breath and soft gasp and stroke of his tongue dancing over yours as your hands roamed over his body, mapping out every line and every inch of his skin while he did the same with you, building that glowing, throbbing ache for him between your legs and stealing your breath with every caress underneath the warm spray of the shower.

When you pulled away from the kiss to catch your breath, you couldn’t tell how much time had passed. And how much longer you’d have until the water would turn freezing.

Eddie reciprocated your wide smile with a radiant one of his own as you watched him.

Admired him.

He was as soaked as you were, his curls black in their sodden state, his bangs falling into his eyes in waves as the water pelting down on the two of you still wasn’t enough to wash away the grime and soot from his face. You’d happily take over this task.

You reached out to grab the bar of soap from the little tray behind him.

“Want me to…?”

“Yeah,” he smiled, his voice breathless as it laced with the noise of the water, and you gestured for him to sit down at the edge of the tub, coating your hands in soap while you stepped closer, positioning yourself between his legs.

“Close your eyes.”

Eddie heeded the soft-spoken command, his eyes fluttering close.

For a heartbeat, you couldn’t help but watch him, admire his long lashes, watch the water run down his beautiful face in soft rivulets, before you set to work.

Your fingertips drew gentle, soapy circles over his right cheek, starting with the side of his face that was unmarred by bruises, and Eddie’s eyelids fluttered softly as he leaned into your caresses as if he’d been as starved for your touch as you’d been for his.

Throat constricting with emotion, with love and affection for Eddie, your songbird, you washed away the ashes from his face, watching the streaks of grime vanish from his skin as you moved on towards the other side of his face, careful to keep the touch of your fingertips light as you cleaned away the grime from his bruises.

And when you were done, you leaned closer, placing the softest of kisses on his brow, right beside the cut, Eddie’s hands coming up to gently settle on your hips while you moved on, placing a second kiss to the bruise on his temple, and a third one on his jaw, right above the darkest of the bruises, Eddie’s soft sigh mingling with the sound of the pelting water.

“Hair?”, you inquired softly, and Eddie’s eyes fluttered open as he gave you one of his playful signature grins before he drawled, “I’m not sure yet whether you dragged me in here because I was stinky or because you wanted to grope me, monster slayer.”

“Both,” you giggled.

“I’ll gladly return the favor.”

You grabbed the bar of soap once more, watching the foam coat your palms before you moved to rake your fingers through his hair, drawing slow, soothing circles on his scalp that coaxed a relieved moan from Eddie’s lips; a sound that went straight to your core, to the ache already building there with every second, every touch, every kiss – but for now, you wanted to relish the innocence of the gesture, of cleaning each other up, the intimacy of it all that wasn’t tied to sex.

“Good?”, you grinned, watching the serene little smile spreading on Eddie’s soft lips as he relished the sensation of your fingertips working the soap into his sodden curls, his eyes closed with bliss while he leaned into the touch of your fingertips.

“If I could purr, I would.”

You watched the water running from his hair slowly turn from a dark grey to clear, a few residual flakes of ashes, or spores, washed away to vanish down the drain.

“I feel like you carried the whole Upside Down in your hair.”

“The way it felt, I wouldn’t be surprised if a Demogorgon or two were still in there as well,” Eddie chuckled, and you joined him in.

With easy silence settling over the two of you once more, filled only by the sound of the water, you moved on to the rest of his body, spreading the foam, fingertips tracing the outlines of his on his chest before you moved on to his arms and down his stomach, breaking your movements to place gentle kisses on his skin that made his breath catch and drew the softest of blissful hums from his throat as Eddie melted into your touches until the last remnants of sweat and grime had been washed down the drain.

“Okay, done,” you said softly, “Squeaky clean.”

“I love it when you talk dirty,” Eddie uttered on a playful croon, making you laugh as he stood up again, gently taking the bar of soap from where you’d placed it on the edge of the tub.

“Your turn?”, he inquired softly, raising the soap as he blinked back at you through the curtain of his sodden bangs and the droplets of water falling from the showerhead above, and you gave him a happy nod.

“I need to hear it, monster slayer,” Eddie said softly.

“Yes,” you breathed, and Eddie leaned in to place to sweetest of kisses on the tip of your nose before he gestured for you to turn. You obliged happily, angling your head a little – and a sigh spilled from your lips as Eddie’s fingertips found their way into your wet hair, massaging the soap into your scalp with smooth movements that made you feel like you could melt any second with the gentleness of the motion, the calming sensations cascading over you as the soapy foam ran down your body.

Your eyes closed, you leaned into Eddie’s touches, feeling the smile tug on your lips and the pleasant shivers racing along your body as Eddie’s hands wandered down to the nape of your neck, along your arms, spreading more soap in slow circles over your skin like you’d done for him, gently washing away the sweat and the stench of smoke and Lover’s Lake which had been clinging to you.

And with the grime and sweat he softly cleared from your skin, vanishing down the drain along the bubbles of soap…it felt like the stain you’d been carrying on your soul, the mark you feared Vecna and the Upside Down had left there to fester, rot spreading with every lie and every ugly secret, was washed off by Eddie’s loving touches, the sensation of his hands wandering over every inch of your body to make your nerves come alive beneath his palms, your mind going haywire as the world around you blurred and each and every one of your senses, of your cells, honed in on Eddie.

Your eyes still closed, you followed Eddie’s lead when he gently twirled you until he was in front of you again, his calloused hands wandering over your body in the softest caresses.

And just when you thought you couldn’t wait a single second longer until he kissed you again, he did.

The softest moan bubbled from your lips and into the kiss as his teeth grazed your bottom lip, having memorized your reaction from that November night – and Eddie’s caresses lost their innocence as he gently caged you against the tiles, his hardened length pressing against your sodden skin to make need flare between your legs.

“That okay?”, he breathed into the kiss, and in your blissed-out daze, it took a moment for you to realize what he meant, that he was scared he could somehow make you feel caught because the position was so similar to the one he’d found Jason in, that night in the woods.

You pulled away from the kiss, your hands cupping Eddie’s cheeks. “I will never, ever feel uncomfortable with you, Eddie,” you whispered. “I want this. Every touch. Every kiss. Okay? As long as you want it too, I’m way more than just okay with everything you do.”

His eyes scanned yours underneath the spray, before he nodded.

And with a trembling breath, shyness taking the wheel for a fleeting heartbeat, you asked, “Can I…touch you?”

It took a moment for the confusion in Eddie’s gaze to clear, before he breathed, “God, yes. If you wanna –“

Your kiss stole the rest of the sentence, because there was nothing you wanted more than to touch him, and his words morphed into a sinful sound that went straight into the heat searing between your own legs as your fingers gently wrapped around his impressive length, one of his hands shooting out to splay on the tiles beside your head to steady himself.

The reaction chased away any residual insecurities, because if that was the sound you could draw from him with a simple touch, you wondered…

Eddie’s groan vibrated through your own body as your thumb gently flicked over his tip, spurning you on and stoking the ravenous need for him in your core as you slowly started to stroke him, the blissful noises tumbling from his throat enough to make you go crazy with want.

Your own moan mingled with his as Eddie’s other hand roamed down your side, wandering towards the inside of your thigh, teasing – before his fingertips found that throbbing spot at the apex of your thighs, and you felt like your knees would give in any second now as he started circling the sensitive bud of your clit, so achingly slowly, just as he’d done that night beneath the stars.

Your blood seemed to turn into liquid flames at the sensations Eddie’s touch sent cascading through your body.

You moved your hips, chasing the friction of Eddie’s fingertips as he continued to draw lazy circles over your wet folds, sending you into ecstasy, and at the sounds tumbling from your throat as your fingers clawed at his back to pull him closer beneath the spray, you could feel Eddie’s soft smile against your lips.

And still, he wasn’t close enough. You needed more, more of him –

A shriek ripped from you as you nearly jumped into Eddie’s arms, your body going numb with the shock of the sudden cold of the spray which had turned icy in the matter of a second, and Eddie’s string of curses filled the tiny space as he blindly fumbled for the shower tap behind you to shut off the freezing water before he succeeded.

For a shaken heartbeat, you stared at each other, both of you shivering, before a breathless little laugh tumbled from your throat and Eddie jumped out of the tub to grab a towel from the drawer beneath the sink, returning to wrap it around your shoulders before, with the sweetest of smiles, Eddie used the towel’s edges to gently swipe the water from your cheeks before he took your hand to help you climb out of the tub.

“Where were we?”, he breathed, inching closer, and you tilted your head before you teased, “Can’t remember.”

“We should definitely retract our steps, then,” he smiled, raising your hand to his lips to place a kiss on your knuckles, “Just to be sure.”

You didn’t remember much of the way from the bathroom to Eddie’s bedroom, didn’t remember how he’d half-heartedly slammed the door shut as you’d tumbled through, the towel falling away from your body as Eddie walked you backwards until the backs of your knees bumped against the frame of his bed and, your hands buried in his sodden curls, you let yourself sink backwards onto the mattress, pulling Eddie down with you, not once breaking the feverish kiss as he situated himself between your legs, elbows resting on the sides of your head and the guitar pick dangling from the little chain around his neck softly grazing the spot below your collarbone.

You rolled your hips against his, and the sensation of his tip grazing against your folds, slick with your arousal, stole the loveliest groan from Eddie’s lips to mingle with your own.

With a soft smile, Eddie began to trail heated kisses from the corner of your mouth to your jaw, over the bruises Jason had left on your skin, the touch of Eddie’s lips featherlight so he wouldn’t hurt you before he reached the spot below your ear, and his kisses grew ravenous again.

You realized what had been in front of you all along. That before you’d even learned that the monster placing horrors into your dreams and mirrors and mind was called Vecna, Eddie had been your saving song to keep each and every single one of your demons at bay.

The tune of his laugh, the music of his lilting voice when he talked, the melody he made your heart sing whenever you thought about him.

Eddie Munson had always been the bane of Vecna’s power over you.

“I need you,” you breathed, and Eddie paused his kisses to glance down at you, eyes glittering with a kaleidoscope of emotions, the darkness of his dilated pupils encased by the rings of his umber irises beneath the drying curls of his bangs.

“You sure?”, he breathed softly, water dripping from his sodden curls onto your own wet skin like the droplets of a gentle summer rain.

You nodded. “Yes. I want you. And if…” You swallowed, fresh tears threatening to choke you once more, “With tomorrow…”

“I don’t want you to want this because you fear it’s the last chance,” Eddie crooned, his breath fanning across your cheeks. “I want you to want this because, well, you want this. Not for some one-last-night-we-gotta-make-it-count-stuff.” He paused, gently brushing a stray strand of hair from your brow before he whispered, “It counts no matter what we do or how far we take this. It always counts ‘cause we’re together. That’s all that matters.”

You smiled at the tenderness in his gaze, the devotion in his umber eyes as if he still couldn’t fathom that you were here, bare beneath him, gazing up at him with all the love that made your heart feel like it would burst with happiness any second.

“You’re still the first, by the way,” Eddie said softly. “The only. There’s…there hasn’t been anyone else.”

His words made your heart soar in your chest like a kite in the summer breeze.

“For me neither,” you whispered. “It’s only ever been you.”

Eddie’s smile widened. “For the record, it wouldn’t change a single thing about how I feel for you, but it does spare me a very large amount of seething, raging jealousy to know you didn’t resort to sex-drugs-and-rock-‘n-roll to…uh. Soothe your aching heart.”

“No way,” you smiled. “I only want you. As for the rest…” your smile turned teasing, “Where should I have gotten the drugs without you? You’re my not-drug dealer of choice. And I feel like I’m more into…you know. Metal, instead of rock ‘n roll.”

Eddie chuckled softly, before his lips met yours again in the sweetest of kisses as he shifted to align himself with your entrance, his soaked curls tickling the skin on your collarbone before he pulled back to gaze down at you, eyes dark and brimming with warmth as he watched you, scanning your face for the slightest sign of unease or doubt he would never find because there was nothing you’d ever wanted more than this, to be with him. To give him your all – body, soul, heart. Everything you had to give.

Your hands locked at the nape of his neck as he leaned onto one elbow, his other hand free to caress your cheek.

“I love you, monster slayer,” Eddie whispered, the tears brimming in his eyes mirroring those which stung in your own.

Of joy, this time. Of gratefulness, for what you’d both thought lost returning to you at last only to realize it had never been gone in the first place.

He’d never told you those three words before, but he didn’t need to. They were evident right now, in the look in Eddie’s eyes as he gazed down at you, making sure you were okay just like he’d done all those months ago on the roof beneath the stars.

They were evident in the sacrifice he’d been ready to bring tonight, and they’d been evident long before, in each of his smiles, every kind word, every little way he’d been there to collect the shards of last summer and mend them back together.

No, Eddie Munson had never needed to say those three words – but hearing him say them now was still the most beautiful thing in the word.

“I love you, too,” you breathed.

With his eyes never leaving yours, Eddie moved, burying himself in your throbbing heat, slowly, as careful as if he still feared he might hurt you, and the air was knocked from your lungs with a sharp exhale as your velvet walls stretched around him and your bodies melted together.

Breathing in each other, gazes locked and overflowing with so much love, it was as if you could feel the glowing thread connecting your soul with his, like the same green ribbon of silk which had led you back to him alongside the tune of his song. Out of the nightmare and back into his waiting arms, catching your fall just like he’d always done.

There were no words to ever express how much you loved Eddie Munson.

And there were no words needed – because you could see it in his eyes that Eddie understood.

You wrapped your legs around his waist to guide him closer, bury him deeper in your heat as the softest moan spilled from his lips to mingle with your own at the sensation.

“You good?”, Eddie breathed, resting his forehead against yours, voice raspy and dark with his arousal as he was giving you time to adjust to this strange new wonderful feeling of him inside of you.

“Better than good,” you whispered – and with your lips meeting his, you rolled your hips, drawing the most beautiful sound from him…and the most sinful one from yourself as the tip of his cock grazed a perfect spot deep inside your velvet walls.

It was all the reassurance Eddie needed. He began to move, pulling out slowly before he sheathed himself inside of you again, and right before your eyes fluttered close with the overwhelming pleasure of the sensation, you caught a glimpse of the tenderness flooding Eddie’s gaze, the raw emotions for you mirrored in their depths.

The glowing sensation of pleasure bolting through you overpowered the slight sting of pain at the movement, and you realized that no matter how often you’d do this with him, you would never get enough of it. Of Eddie buried inside your throbbing walls, his heartbeat racing against yours in beautiful synchrony and his curls tickling your cheeks as he moved, slowly, so achingly slowly; each measured thrust building this heat in your core and stealing the breath from you, chasing every rational thought from your mind until there was only Eddie, his scent immersing your senses and his slow thrusts driving you into the sweetest oblivion.

You realized why people called it making love.

You could feel Eddie’s love for you in every gentle thrust, in every caress of his calloused fingertips over your cheeks while his own moans mingled with yours in the air around you.

His fingertips brushed over the spot below your ear before they caressed your jaw, gently tilting your head to grant him access to your neck, his teeth nipping and grazing the tender skin above your pulse as you bit back another moan – but hot breath tickling over the wet skin below your ear, Eddie whispered, “No need to hold back, sweetheart. Be as loud as you want to. Those sounds are sweeter than any guitar tune.”

He didn’t need to tell you twice. The last remnants of your restraint melted beneath the heat he sent searing through your nerves, setting your body ablaze with bliss.

Your hands roamed over the soft skin of his back, feeling his muscles flex with every thrust as Eddie increased his pace, you own hips snapping up to meet his in perfect synchrony, each movement guiding him deeper into your heat, his tip grazing that spot over and over again while your hands tangled in the soft, soaked curls at the nape of his neck, tugging just the way you knew he loved – and the reward was a sound that went straight into your core, making you clench around him.

“God, you feel so good,” Eddie rasped, his voice strained with need when his hand left your jaw to roam down the column of your throat, trailing over your breasts and farther down, “So, so good.”

Your reply turned into another broken groan before you could utter any words when Eddie’s fingertips slid into the space between your bodies to graze the swollen bud of your clit, making bliss sear along your nerves until your entire body was alight with the sensation, the pleasure Eddie kept building in your core with every quickening thrust, growing more urgent with each roll of your hips to meet his, every caress of his fingertips over the nub of your clit until you felt you might go crazy with the need for more, more of him, his touches, his wanton moans lacing in the air with your own to form a beautiful duet – and with a final thrust, hitting that sweet, sweet spot deep inside of you just perfect, Eddie’s name ripped from you in a broken cry as bliss cascaded over you. A glowing tidal wave, washing over every nerve and every cell of your body, every fibre of your being as you came undone beneath him, his soft murmurs guiding you through your orgasm.

“I love you, sweetheart,” Eddie whispered, the pace of his thrusts faltering as his own climax drew closer, his fingertips still dancing over your clit, the touch of the calloused pads of his fingertips the most perfect contrast to your own soaked skin – soaked with the water of the shower still clinging to you, with sweat and the arousal pooling between your legs. “I love you so fucking much.”

And his forehead falling against yours, Eddie’s orgasm washed over him with the sound of your name like the lyrics of a song on his lips. It was the most beautiful one you’d ever heard.

His eyes closed with bliss and his soft, plush lips parted with a soft groan, the sight was so beautiful you wanted it tattooed in your memories as your hands left his curls to settle on the sides of his face, careful not to graze the dark bruises blooming there as he rode out his climax, his fingertips still coaxing wave after wave of white-hot bliss from your body as they swirled over your clit, spreading your arousal.

And when you felt him spill himself inside of you, the sensation was enough to send you over the edge for a second time, this one more gentle – a wave carrying you rather than crashing over you yet just as intense, robbing every last ounce of strength from your muscles as it washed over you with the sweetest release, his hands shooting up to lace his fingers with your own above your head as the pace of his thrusts faltered.

For a few heartbeats, the two of you stayed like this, trying to catch your breaths, caught in the hazy afterglow of passion numbing your minds and ensnaring your senses, Eddie’s curls tickling your sweat-soaked skin, before Eddie rolled off you, gently pulling you with him, against his chest, the echo of his heartbeat thundering against your ear as you caught your breaths.

“Jesus Christ,” Eddie let out a breathless laugh, bewildered and amazed all at the same time, “That was…holy shit.”

“This…this was…” You trailed off, at a loss for words, still caught in the daze of your second orgasm.

“Yeah,” Eddie whispered, his breath tickling the shell of your ear, “Better than anything I could’ve ever imagined.”

“Did you?”, you drawled playfully, still breathless as you placed your chin on his rapidly rising and falling chest to glance at him, “Imagine something the likes?”

Eddie’s answering smile was as radiant as a supernova, his voice genuine as he rasped, “Only with you, monster slayer.”

And for those beautiful moments, your happiness, the euphoria of being back in Eddie’s arms, right where you belonged with his heartbeat against yours, chased the way the thoughts of Vecna and his monsters and his threat hanging over you like crimson thunderclouds.

There would be time to prepare for what was to come next.

One final battle.

One last time of rolling the dice fate had handed the two of you, hoping for that critical hit to save what you loved most.

To save your songbird.

And save him, you would. No matter the price, you were ready to pay it. Tomorrow.

𝐂𝐡𝐚𝐩𝐭𝐞𝐫 𝟏𝟑

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#eddie munson #eddie munson x reader #eddie munson x you #eddie munson x y/n #stranger things eddie #eddie munson fix it fic #eddie munson fanfiction #eddie munson imagine #stranger things #stranger things 4 #stranger things x reader #stranger things x y/n #stranger things x you #stranger things imagine #stranger things fanfic #joe quinn

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books-of-the-great-leviathan · 1 year

Text

Chapter 20- Luca

***

Luca would never forget the feeling of home: the wind rising off Bellana's Arm, the lush humidity of the air, the scatter and cry of white cloud gulls coursing with the breeze. Still, nothing could dull his nerves, loosen the tension inside him. This wasn't a homecoming, no matter how much he wished it so.

On deck, the crew seemed subdued. Nadya marched the length of the Fishcutter, calling orders, but her eyes were hard, her hands never far from the hilts of her weapons. Rigging spiders scanned the horizon. Niive wasn't riding the high winds, like she preferred to do on the open sea, but rather stood on the bow, her arms raised as she filled the ship's sails, her black hair whipped round her shoulders. The sky was open, clear, sun making its slow climb to the apex. The water was a deep, vivid blue, all rolling swells. Luca helped where he could, but kept straying to the railing, kept his eyes on the horizon, waiting.

By noon, he caught his first glimpse of Lapide.

It was only a haze, a faint green trace, a wisp of cedar scent, but it was there. Luca went to the railing and leaned over, as if he could will himself closer.

"Not bad to look at from here," said Irene, behind him.

"The crew doesn't seem to share your appreciation."

"These are wartime waters." She moved to his side, hands in her greatcoat pockets. "Makes for uneasy sailing."

"I trust the thought of the Fishcutter foundering under a fortune in Lapidaean gold helps them sail easier."

"Gold," Irene snorted. "Gold in your words, gold in your hair. Gold lining our coffins. I'll rest easier when we're pointed toward the Gulf of Storms and I can't smell the reek of this water on me anymore. Are you ready, then?"

"I left Lapide a traitor. I won't be sailing in, that's certain." He kept his eyes on the trace of land. "We wait for night."

"I hope you have a plan, Valere."

"I assure you, neither you nor your crew nor your pretty little ship will come to any harm. I'll see to that."

Irene snorted. "Mind yourself first. You, and yours."

Luca glanced to Sirin. She was perched on the bowsprit, Puppy curled on her lap, snapping at seabirds that spiraled too close. She'd ventured out of the cabin these last few days, weak and gaunt but able to walk without assistance.

She'll be all right, he told himself. She was strong enough to do what she did in An Gholam, wasn't she? If she can survive that, she can survive anything.

He would never forget the sight of her at the bow. She hadn't commanded the storm. She was the storm. For a moment, he'd thought she really would let her shadows crush them all instead of the monster.

Irene's eyes flicked from him to Sirin, then scanned scanned the glimpse of Lapide, her brow furrowed over her mismatched gaze.

"You know how I lost this eye?" she asked. "My pa did it. He was a right old bastard. Ork-hunter first mate who murdered his captain in grand mutiny, stole his ship, and sailed it straight to Vaarghaul. Heard of the place? Better if you hadn't. It's hell, if ever there was one. A frozen wreck of a city clinging onto a frozen wreck of an island. Our mother was a flower-seller, a poor wretch who couldn't say no to him. Maybe it was animal magnetism. Maybe the reek of ork-oil got her in the mood."

She let out a snarl of laughter. "My pa had this whip from his ork-hunting days, used to control the dying beasts when they're hauled up on deck. He liked using it on people. And one day, I came in from plucking pockets to find dear old dad standing over my mother's corpse. Matteo was huddled in a corner, hiding his eyes, but I knew. I knew he'd seen. He was just a boy. Four years old and sitting in a pool of our mum's blood."

"Triune," Luca muttered.

"Yeah, well." Irene smiled. "He tried to turn the whip on me. On the ground, Irene, he yelled at me. He was so far in the drink I don't think I was his daughter anymore. I was too scared to move, and it cost me. Next time he cracked that whip it took out my eye."

She stopped. Her brows were drawn together.

"He wasn't done. Get on the ground or I'll put a notch in your little brother, he said. Well, that couldn't stand. I kept on coming. I stuck my little oyster knife in his guts and then he didn't hit me anymore."

"What did you do?" Luca asked.

"Me and Matteo chopped up our father's body and tipped the pieces into the dockyards chum-buckets. He always did like the sea, after all. Didn't take long to ferret out his stash of cash and make for the open ocean."

Irene drew a short breath, studying the waves.

"I was scared," she said. "Not just of him. I was scared 'cause he was my pa and it was me and Matteo, or it was him. If part of me hadn't wanted to spare him I'd still have two eyes."

"You can't regret mercy."

"Oh, yes I can," Irene said. "This world won't show you any. The Leviathan won't show you any. Your sister, Severin Azare, they weren't spared. They were flukes, motes in the beast's eye. We're all the same in its world."

She fixed him with her whaleglass stare. "I understand why my pa liked his whip so much. It gave him power. And if I had power like Sirin's-"

She let out her breath.

"We all saw her turn the monster," she said. "I'm grateful for that. Truly. But I saw what she might have done, too. She could have killed all of us as soon as smile, and she was so far gone in her shadows she might have done it without knowing."

"What in all Hells are you saying?"

"You know what I'm saying, Valere. You aren't as stupid as you look." Irene curled her hand over the pommel of her pistol. "I'm saying there are all kinds of mercy. Some don't look it. Not until after. Some we have to make for ourselves. Me, and you. And you're a merciful man."

Luca rounded on her. They were nearly the same height; Irene barely had to tip her chin up to look him in the eyes.

"I wouldn't make threats like that," Luca said. "If I were you."

Irene smiled. "Best be glad you're not me, then." She stepped back and gave him a mocking bow. "Welcome home, Luca Valere."

The Fishcutter drew no closer to shore. By dusk they made harbor off one of Lapide's many small barrier islets, a solitary crag of white rock rising from the sea, crowned in scrub and threadbare cedars and a circlet of gulls. The crew dropped anchor and trimmed sails, and as the shadows lengthened over the water the Fishcutter seemed to melt into them, its tarred hull invisible against the lee face of the islet.

He joined Niive, Sirin, and Cereza at the bow, settling down on a sprawl of balding velvet cushions. They sat round an oilcloth spread with fresh-caught shallows fish, pickled ginger, and raw pink crustaceans rubbed with spices and citrus juice. The crew had wasted no time netting fresh food after weeks at sea, and Luca was grateful for an end to hardtack and touga jerky.

A glimmer of ice swirled in Niive's palm, the air around her colder than the rest. "Nervous?" Luca asked, licking juice off his thumb.

"You wish." Her tone was cool, but the icy wind danced and fluttered around her fingers like an agitated glimmit. She saw Luca looking and clenched her fist, banishing the wind. "Are you going to stare, or are we going to plan?"

"We can't sail straight into the harbor, as much as I'd like to," Luca said. "The last command Isabella gave was for her Falcii to shoot us down. We'd violated our mother's direct orders. More than that, we'd sprung Cereza's would-be assassin from under Isabella's nose."

"You...freed her from prison?" Niive asked, glancing at Sirin.

"We did," Cereza said, Puppy curled in her lap. "I helped."

"That's true. You were there," Luca said.

Cereza kicked him in the shin. Sirin's eyes flicked skyward. Regardless, we three won't be getting into Valeris by any typical means.

"That's where Niive comes in," Luca said. Niive gave him a level look. "Can you fly with us three, and Puppy?"

"Puppy?" Cereza echoed.

"Puppy stays with me. I'm not leaving it with these pirates."

"I can fly the distance," Niive said. "I will not be nimble, but I should make it."

Should? Sirin cut in.

Niive fixed her with a golden stare. "Doubt me, witchborn?"

You, no. I simply doubt my ability to remain in one piece should I fall from sufficient height.

"You're sure you want to come?" Luca asked her.

She tensed. I am fine, Valere.

"You don't have to-"

I'm fine. Her shadow on the planks writhed and spread. The welt she'd burned into Luca's arm gave a hard throb, singing in the backs of Luca's teeth. He winced, and her eyes widened, then hardened, fastening again on the darkening sea.

Do not chide me, Luca, she signed after a moment. I am going.

Cereza jabbed a knife through the last shellfish and fed it to Puppy. The little creature crunched it down it in one bite, shell and all. "We still don't know what we're looking for."

"Valeria had to have left behind something in Valeris. It was her citadel. Her fortress. Triune, she built it from the foundations up-"

"Luca, no one knows what happened to Valeria. We don't even know where she was buried. No tomb, no trace."

"Just because no one knows now doesn't mean it doesn't exist," Luca pressed. "She was real. She was our bloody ancestor. You think she gave up when she saw the might of Laurais' armies? If she had, we wouldn't be here today."

"Incredible," Cereza said.

"What?"

"How much you can make me want to punch you within the span of five sentences."

"Try to avoid the nose. It's had enough abuse for one lifetime." He cleared dishes out of the way and spread a map of Valeris over the tarred planks, weighing down the corners with empty crockery. The map was one of Irene's, a creased old thing much stained from years of salt wind, spattered with what looked suspiciously like blood. It was at least a decade out of date, but Luca knew the city well enough to make up for it.

"If we approach from here," he said, tracing the arc of mountains that cupped the city, "we'll take the shortest route over Valeris, straight to the Palace itself."

"Homesick?" Niive asked.

Luca shook his head, twiddling the small oyster knife between his fingers. "The rest of Valeris has been rebuilt, remade, dug into to make new canals. The Palace and Valeris Ridge are the oldest parts of the city, the original foundations of Valeria's first settlement on the ruins of the Estaran Empire's prior capitol."

He tapped the Ridge and the Palace built atop. "We shouldn't be sighted. The Palace is well guarded, but the city's built to look to the sea for attack, not the sky."

"Awfully clear skies tonight," Cereza murmured, glancing toward the first of the three moons already visible overhead.

"They needn't stay that way," Niive said.

Luca grinned. "That's the spirit."

"Do you think Isabella-" Cereza began, her voice small.

"Isabella can go to the glowlands," Luca said. "We keep to the plan. We don't hurt anyone. We'll wait for moonsrise, then get flying."

"And I'm coming with you."

Luca looked up as shadow fell over them. Azare stared down at him, eyes narrowed against the setting sun.

"Alois is in the Palace," he said. "Your mother's prisoner. Isn't he?"

"Last I know of."

Azare turned to Niive. "Can you carry a fourth?"

She shrugged, picking at her nails.

Luca set his teeth. Azare met his gaze again, steady and dark. At last, Luca looked away and stood.

"Fine," he said. "Everyone should get some rest. Whatever else, we're in for a long night."

***

As the moons rose, their light swept over the ocean, touching the waves with silver and turning Lapide's coastline to a brushstroke of deep blue and blanch-white. The only color in the world came from the running lamps, dull red globes at the Fishcutter's bow. They cast a glow like a banked coal in the black water.

Cereza was right- the sky was cloudless, the stars unobscured. Heat still shimmered over the deck, but the wind held a chill. At the first trace of cold breeze, Niive seemed to perk up. She was balanced on the railing, poised on her toes, weightless as a bird. She eyed the land, the sea, then turned her face toward the sky, her eyes narrowed against the drenching light of the great moon.

"I can work with this," she said.

"Then let's go," Luca told her as he stroked Puppy. "Before we run out of night."

Azare knelt nearby, murmuring to himself- a prayer to Bellana, his weapons arrayed around him, sword and stiletto and boot knife. When he was done, he sheathed them once more and stood. All wore dark clothes, plain and weather-beaten, hardly the sapsilk and brocade Luca had left Valeris in.

Niive straightened, her hair lifting as the breeze kicked up around them. She nodded to Sirin a few yards off, tugging a hood over her short curls. "With her power, we hardly need the winds. She could make us disappear easier than I-"

"No," Luca said, his voice hard. "She already did enough for us."

"You don't trust her?"

"Of course I trust her!" Luca faced the sea, scanning the shoreline for any sign of lights. "You think I want her to push herself like she did in An Gholam? She almost died."

"That is true," Niive agreed levelly.

"Just be ready to fly," Luca told her. "Sweet-talk some clouds or whatever it is you do."

She gave him a look, then lifted her arms. Her hair rose with them, shifting and iridescent. It fell into form, becoming feathers. The railing creaked, the entire ship shifting to the side as her bird-shape took on mass.

Niive fixed one eye on Luca and clicked her beak with a sharp snick, as if to say your turn, Valere.

"Hurry up, Luca," Cereza said, brushing past him and swinging easily onto Niive's back. Azare followed after giving Niive a once-over.

Yes, Luca, hurry up, Sirin signed as she came up behind him.

"I was ready by sundown," he retorted, but didn't waste more time. He gathered Puppy and climbed onto Niive behind the others, winding his hands deep into her feathers. He felt her muscles flex beneath him, felt her weight shift, before her wings flared wide and she flung herself off the deck, into the sky.

The winds carved out around her; he barely had time to strengthen his grip before the Fishcutter fell away and they were borne up into the night.

Luca flattened against Niive's feathers, his eyes filled with tears from the cold. Niive gained altitude, then stopped, her wings outstretched, the wind keeping her aloft at her command. The shoreline stayed at a distance; they would fly down the coast to the mountains visible in the distance, pale and jagged, like the spine of some long-dead creature. The sea was a great rippling expanse of dark water and silver moonslight, Bellana's Arm spread beyond.

Luca glimpsed the light as Sirin did, as she glanced back at him with eyes wide. It flickered over the waves some leagues to the south: a great line of lanternlight, drawing closer with each of Niive's wingbeats.

Puppy gave a soft whine, pulling close against Luca. The lanterns drew forms from the waves, and soon the first of them became fully visible in the bright moonslight. A ship, tall and white-sailed, glorious and triple-masted, its flanks bristling with cannons. The blue Lapidaean flag snapped from its mainmast, emblazoned with his mother's pale hawk.

Even far away, Luca knew that sort of ship like he knew his own hands: a navy battleship in full wartime splendor.

Sand seemed to slither down his spine. A second ship appeared alongside the first, and then another. Within minutes, a line of ships had appeared below, all in full sail, all of them battleships with broadsides at the ready.

"A blockade," Azare said quietly.

Luca's pulse hammered in his fists. Had they wandered into a battle? Had the war escalated so while he was gone? The sky was clear of spellfire smoke, but he imagined he could still smell it on the breeze. His hands tightened on Niive's feathers as a curl of dread unfurled in his heart.

They veered sideways, away from the blockade, toward Lapide. The shoreline rushed nearer. It skimmed past, and the land overtook it, rocky coastline and the first broken fangs of the mountains jutting from cedar forests and scree.

Luca's heart hammered in his wrists, his palms slick as he gripped Niive's feathers. The crust of mountains cleared, and he glimpsed the first spear of pale stone.

Valeris. Even faraway it was familiar as an old song, long-since memorized and never to be forgotten. The spear became a spire, a single finial spike crowning the highest point of the city: the grand dome atop the Palace.

The Palace itself rose into view atop Valeris Ridge, spilling down its side in terraces and cascades of whitebrick curtain wall, waterways joining the great silver road of the Vie pointing toward the bay beyond. The great canal was fed by its countless lesser siblings, a web of tributaries twining through the rest of the city. Some served as roadways, others as drainage canals, built to channel storm rains and monster waves away from the city, preventing floods and protecting Valeris from the worst of what came.

Luca's heart ached as he felt the breeze off the city, not Niive's captured wind, but muggy and full of familiar smells. The mineral mud of the Vie, the sweetness of overripe fruit, factory smoke and tar and the sun-bleached salt-stone of Valeris itself, whitebrick baking in the heat of noon, buckled cobblestone streets steaming in the sun.

He caught Cereza's eyes as she watched the city, and she returned his look, her brow furrowed, her face pale.

It was still. Too still, and too quiet. The streets were dark, the harbor dark, the Vie bereft of vessels save for patrol boats. The Palace loomed on the Ridge. Even in the height of wartime, Valeris had never looked so empty. First the blockade, and now this, Valeris lightless and lifeless and spectral. Cereza glanced back at him again. He knew what she was thinking, and thought it too. What by the Triune had happened here while they were gone?

Something wrong? Sirin said.

"I don't know," Luca muttered.

Cereza leaned in. "Should we go back?"

Luca shook his head. The monster, the Leviathan- it wouldn't wait around. It wouldn't hold back, nor hold off.

Sirin watched him with her steady gaze, expression unreadable.

"No." Luca drew a short breath. He didn't have time to doubt. None of them did. "We keep going."

The mountain crags whipped beneath them, wind singing off the pale points of rock. They were almost clear of them and flying in empty air again. Luca nudged Niive with his knee and she tipped her wings in response. Around Luca, the air tightened. Pressure mounted in his ears, and the wind scoured past him, numbing his cheeks with ice. He felt the wind strengthen. The moonslight dimmed, and the air around them swirled with mist. A churning blanket of clouds gathered from the corners of the sky, sweeping like a cloak in Niive's wake.

Luca couldn't resist a grin as the entire sky darkened, the stars, the moons, and Niive alike shrouded in what would appear to the guards below as nothing more than night-fog. The last time a witch's storm had veiled the city was when Valeria had first come to Lapidaean shores. Luca had traveled long enough with Niive he'd almost forgotten the extent of her power, but if this city remembered anything, he was sure it would never forget the onslaught of Aiatar magic.

He glimpsed of the statue of Valeria in the grand Palace agora, so far below she was little more than a glint of upraised sword and pale stone.

A chill rippled under his skin. He remembered the Leviathan's eyes, his fear and uncertainty reflected back at him.

Let this be right.

Let me be right.

Niive tilted and swooped on one wing, mist descending with her. The city drew closer, the Palace dome breaching the cloud layer as Niive swooped in ever-widening circles. Tower windows blurred past, some lit, some shuttered; a guard patrolled on a narrow moonslit battlement, his rifle slung over one shoulder.

Wind skittered over the battlement. The guard looked up; as he did, Niive sent mist coiling around him. She passed yards over his head, silent as a ghost. By the time the mist cleared, they were long gone.

Ahead, a rooftop rose into view, a curved expanse of tiles like the back of a breaching sea-ork. With a twist of wind, Niive flared her wings and landed. Her talons let out a high scree against the tiles as she scrabbled for a grip, at last finding it on the roof ridge. Her massive claws bit deep into the stone. Luca and the others swung down, keeping under the protective canopy of Niive's wings; the towers rose around them, shielding them from the worst of the wind.

Azare nodded to Luca. "I'll find my own way out."

"What's that supposed to mean?"

"It means not to wait for me," Azare said. "I'll find Alois, or I won't. Either way, look after yourselves. And her."

He nodded at Cereza, who looked up, her brow furrowed.

"Azare-" she began.

"Go," he said. He seemed about to add more, then shook his head. "Calm seas, Valere."

"And clear skies."

Without another word, Azare turned and sprinted away. Within seconds he was another shadow. He vanished over the edge of the rooftop and was gone.

Niive's form shifted in on itself, shrinking into her human shape, her wings remaining. "What do you need me to do?"

Luca pointed to one of the arched windows set in the wall of a dome below. It was dark and shuttered, too narrow to allow Niive's wings, the wall too sheer for her to gain a clawhold. "Can you get us down there?"

Niive fixed him with a look. "I still think you're mad, trusting those contraptions of yours."

"Land us silently on that sill and I'll never tinker again."

"I wouldn't want to rob you of the pleasure, Valere. I'll keep watch." She caught Cereza's hand and squeezed it. "Try not to need me."

Cereza chewed her lower lip, her eyes downcast. "I..." she began, then shook her head. "I'll be careful."

She went up on her toes and pressed a swift kiss to Niive's cheek. In the moonslight Luca couldn't be sure, but he thought he glimpsed a flush on Niive's face, gone by the time she pinned him with another glare.

"Let's see it, then," she said.

Luca reached in the pack slung over his shoulder and drew forth a folded sheet of canvas. He shook it, and it unfurled, springing into form: oiled sailcloth stretched on a flexible framework of lightlock, the entire contraption shaped roughly like a spearhead. It snapped taut, pulling at Luca's hands as he gripped the rough rope handles he'd hastily spliced onto the underside.

It looked like some huge tailless kite, though none of a sort he'd flown as a child, no paint nor gilt nor sapsilk tassels. This glider looked rough, and from the way it jagged and jumped at his grip, it would handle rough, too.

No matter. He hadn't had time for more, nor the tools, simply his memories of glider-models he'd made in his workshops.

"Here," he said, passing a second and third glider to Sirin and Cereza.

You're...sure, Luca? Sirin asked, eyeing the thing.

"No," he admitted. "Every prototype I made in the past crashed within minutes. Have you seen the rather impressive scar on my calf? That was from a test I did off a cliff. I must admit it was spectacular- when I hit the ground my fibula snapped like a twig, and the bone was sticking right through my-"

Will it work? Sirin cut in.

"That time I didn't have witchery on my side." Luca let out out his breath. "It'll have to work."

He went to the roof's edge, slinging Puppy over his back. It dug its claws into his shoulders. The mist swirled around them, the cool wind ruffling his hair, steadying the high keen of his nerves. The drop called, a plunge straight down the side of the ridge, all the way to the red rooftops of Valeris below. He made out pinpricks of lanternlight moving on the Vie's distant surface.

Puppy whined. Luca gave the creature a scratch behind the ears. He gripped onto the rope handles of the glider as he crept closer to the edge.

Grit showered into the empty sky.

"Niive," he said, between clenched teeth. "I could use that breeze around now."

In answer, wind swirled beneath him, snaking under his shirt; he had an instant to grip tight before it coiled under the glider, a swell of warm air. The canvas twanged and hummed on its frame; his feet left the tiles, and with a lurch in his guts, the roof was gone and he was swept into the sky.

Moonslight rushed past; wind stung tears from his eyes. His hands burned on the rope, but it didn't matter. The Palace spread around him, the wind buoying him up, Niive's control keeping him aloft.

He wanted to let out a laugh, to hear his voice echo off the pale walls below; he bit it back. If a guard's rifle shot nicked the canvas, even Niive's control over the wind wouldn't be enough to save him from the drop.

The window spun toward him; he felt the glider shudder as the white wall flung itself at him. Luca let go of the glider with one hand, reaching for the broad windowsill, knees to his chest. He braced and kicked out for the edge. His toes scraped stone. With a strangled yelp he scrambled onto the sill and dropped to his knees, still clinging to the glider as it danced and twisted at his hands, threatening to pull him back into the empty air.

Shaking, he wrestled it closed, then crouched on the sill and waved toward the distant roof, barely visible through the mist. Within minutes, Cereza swooped close, then Sirin. Luca reached out for Cereza and caught her, then turned to help Sirin. She was already crouched on the edge of the sill, her glider folded, shadows swirling around her like a cloak.

She lifted her eyebrows.

"See?" Luca said lightly. "They worked."

Sirin broke the lock on the cedar shutters with a twist of her shadows. The shutters swung open onto a corridor, darkness striped with slats of moonslight. They illuminated the arched columns of the corridor, the ceiling patterned with blue and silver tiles like fish-scales.

Sirin cast her eyes down the corridor, a look of distaste on her face.

"This is the residential wing," Luca whispered. "Our mother usually puts guests in here. I don't suppose we'll run into anyone. These aren't terribly social times. We need to get down to the lower levels of the Palace, down to the tunnels-"

You'd best be sure, Valere, Sirin said. Her posture was tense, hands clenched. Shadows danced around her shoulders like black flames.

"I am," Luca told her. "There was a city before Valeris, sundered to its foundations over five hundred years ago. Whatever was built on its bones was Valeria's."

Built over a battlefield, Sirin said. There will be bones indeed.

Cereza closed the shutters behind them, cutting off the keen of the wind. Silence fell, broken only by the plash of a fountain echoing from some nearby walled courtyard, by the faint, omnipresent rumble of the waterways coursing just under the Palace's skin.

The doors were closed, no light visible under them. Whitebrick walls became carved cedar paneling as they wound deeper into the dome, and in them Luca glimpsed their own blurry reflections traveling at their sides, strangers to this place, no longer Valeres at all.

Sirin jerked to a halt, lifting her hand. Lamplight flared through the colonnade ahead. They crept forward, shadows thickening under Sirin's command as they kept in them. Luca's breath was visible in the air as he peered over the mezzanine.

This colonnade overlooked the Palace's grand agora, the great courtyard that was its heart, dominated by a vast bronze statue of Valeria herself with upraised sword and face lifted to the sky. Moonslight fell in a heavy swathe over the statue, over the agora at its feet, over the gibbet raised beneath Valeria's sword, the smell of decay rising thick through the warm night wind.

Cereza gasped, flinching back, while Sirin stood rigid. Luca recognized the faces of the corpses swinging from the gibbet. Duchess Melia, with her graying hair unbound and fluttering in the breeze. Lord Maryen, from the Irial Ridge, who had been one of Sofia Valere's chancellors, whose daughters Luca had grown up alongside, who had ever sent him little mechanicals of Buyani porcelain and delicate clockwork. Several of the Falcii, still clad in their blue uniforms.

More Falcii guarded the gibbet's foot, rifles shouldered, pacing circles around their executed comrades. Luca's vision pulsed, his skin hot and cold in courses. Sirin's eyes were fixed on the gibbet, unmoving, lightless.

"It's Mother's chancellors," Cereza whispered. "Maryen, Melia-"

"I know."

Cereza's eyes shone with tears. "Why would Mother execute her own chancellors?"

Luca pushed back from the parapet, his mouth bitter. "We need to find a way down. We...we shouldn't be here-"

"You! Stop!"

Luca whirled as a pair of Palace guard burst from the archway, rifles at hand, eyes narrowed behind the silver faceplates of their helmets. Cereza stumbled back, but Sirin stayed where she was, her hands at her sides, her expression hard.

"Wait." The first guard blinked, taking them in. "All Hells, that's-"

Sirin moved.

Her hands snapped up, shadows rising like a wave. A howl filled Luca's head as frost fanned over the walls, the heat stolen from the air. The moonslight dimmed. Muscular tendrils of shadow snaked over the guards and pulled tight, cutting off their shout.

Darkness streamed from Sirin's body. Her eyes were wide, so black they seemed like pits in her face, like she'd slipped through some crack in the world, straight through to an abyss beyond. She'd looked that way facing the monstrous Leviathan, so deep in her shadows she hadn't realized the entire fleet was breaking apart around her.

"Sirin," Luca cried. Her shadows flexed, tightened; the guards cried out as bone crackled. "Sirin, let them go."

More shouts echoed down the colonnade and from the agora below. Luca looked up as lamplight flared, as a woman strode toward them, her hair springing round her shoulders, her sword drawn and shining. He flinched back as if struck. In the lanternlight, he knew her face- her unbound curls, the scars glinting on her dark skin.

Cereza knew her, too. Her fist went to her mouth, her eyes wide. Little wonder. The last time they'd seen her she was laying Luca's back open with a sword. Now she came to a halt, flanked by more Palace guard with live blades.

"That's Ziva Lapin," Luca snarled. "That's the Witchhunter's bloody lieutenant."

"Valere?" Lapin said, her brows drawn together. "You survived? But-"

She blinked. Her eyes widened.

"No," she whispered. "Can't be-"

There was no time. Without hesitation Luca plunged his hand into Sirin's shadows. It was like reaching into icy, fast-moving water. Cold crackled through him, darkness veining up his skin. He ignored it, ignored the pain, and grabbed Sirin's arm. The spike of cold when he touched her was worse than the rest, but he didn't let her go.

"Sirin!" he said again. "Now!"

She blinked. Her eyes cut to him. Her hands curled into fists, shadows slithering from the guards. They collapsed, groaning, to the floor.

"Get after them," Lapin ordered. "I'm headed to the gardens. They can't have come alone."

Luca grabbed Cereza's arm and pulled her and Sirin both back into the corridor. Lapin's commands rang behind them. The walls blurred; Luca tasted bitter magic in the air. Puppy bounded by his side, claws skittering on the flagstones.

"We need to call Niive," Cereza gasped, scrubbing at her eyes. "We need to get out of here."

"Look for a terrace," Luca said. He was still hanging onto Sirin, his arm numb to the elbow. He let her go and doubted she noticed. Her gaze was still distant, her body quivering. Shadows flickered over her skin like black flames.

"What in all Hells were you doing?" Luca demanded.

Saving our lives-

"By nearly killing those guards? We agreed to do this without hurting anyone-"

Her eyes flashed. What did you want me to do? Let them shoot us?

"No-"

This is my power, Sirin said. This is what I am.

Luca clenched his jaw. At his feet, Puppy yipped and began down another corridor. Shouts echoed from behind them, back the way they'd come.

"This way!" Cereza called, following Puppy. "There!"

She pointed. A pair of double doors loomed at the end of the hallway, carved with patterns of platefish and stars. They burst through at a run and skidded into the dark rooms beyond.

Luca slammed the doors shut, his pulse hammering in his palms. "Lapin's here," he panted. "Lapin is in Valeris. Why would Lapin be in Valeris?"

"I wish Niive had fried her with lightning when she had the chance." Cereza shook her head. "We need to get out. We can still-"

"Cereza."

One of the ork-oil sconces on the wall guttered to life. In its amber glow stood a young man, his dark curls mussed, his round face covered with healing bruises. He wore a light robe and sleeping clothes; he'd clearly just woken up. He stared at Cereza, his lips slightly parted, as if she was a trick of the moonslight.

"Alois?" Cereza said faintly.

"You're alive." Prince Alois blinked, as if taking her in. "You...you broke the curse? Saints, you found the Great Leviathan?"

"Alois, I'm sorry." Tears shone in Cereza's eyes. "You need to get out of the way."

He stood between them and the balcony. Luca saw it past him, a broad expanse of moonslit terrace flanked by statues, so close he felt the night breeze on his face.

"Isabella banished you," Alois said. "I saw you come in. You shouldn't be here."

"I wish I could explain-" Luca began.

Muffled voices echoed through the doors. Sirin lowered her head, shadows swirling around her again.

"Why is Lieutenant Lapin here?" Cereza demanded. "The queen would never-"

"It's at the queen's word she's here at all," Alois said. His hand crept to his side- reaching for a weapon?

"Mother let the Witchhunter's lieutenant into the Palace?" Cereza said.

Horror crossed Alois's face. "You don't know," he said.

"Know what?"

"I'm so sorry, Cereza," Alois said. "Your mother-"

He cut off as lamplight flickered under the door.

"Get out of the way, Alois," Luca said. "I don't want to make you."

Alois's jaw clenched. He didn't move.

"Alois, please," Cereza begged.

Shadow blurred, knocking Luca aside. Sirin. She sprang, all bared teeth and hands crooked into claws, talons of shadow sharp enough to tear Alois in half. Wood splintered behind Luca, and light blazed through the darkness. A rifle shot cracked. Sirin snarled in pain and collapsed at Alois's feet, clutching her side. Blood wept through her fingers.

"No!" Luca rounded on the Palace guard, fists clenched- to do what, he had no idea.

He had no chance to find out.

A hand closed on his wrist and wrenched his arm straight, pulling him round. Gold flashed in the lamplight.

"Bell?" he gasped.

His sister stood before him, tall and straight-backed, her grip tight as a fetter. She stared at him in turn, her gray eyes bright. Without warning she drove her knee into his guts. He went down hard, slamming back-first to the floor.

Isabella stood over him, her swordpoint pressed to his heart.

"Going to kill me after all, Bell?" he panted, taking in the new cuts on her face, the half-healed bruises darkening her jaw.

"What do we do with the witchborn, Majesty?" one of her Falcii asked, standing over Sirin with pistol drawn.

"Chain the monster," Isabella ordered. "Bring a magister with enough night-drop to fell a wild gholiant."

Luca twisted, looking for Sirin, but Isabella's sword dug deeper into his chest. Majesty, the Falcii had called her. Luca felt his pulse in his palms, felt the sickening twist of dread in his guts. He saw the harsh light in her eyes, and it was like she'd run him through after all. "You...you're queen? But Mother-"

"Mother is dead," Isabella told him, as Cereza began to weep, as the Falcii closed in. "I am queen of Lapide, now. And you should have stayed lost."

#grave of the great leviathan #tales of the great leviathan #fantasy fiction #serial novel #original fiction #chapter 20

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