I've outlined a story that would go from Eddie's first senior year to the year we see in Stranger Things. I think having him fail twice is needlessly insulting and unrealistic.
This would bring my OC into season four of Stranger Things as well. The story I outlined sticks fairly close to season four's scenes, but obviously with changes.
I think a lot of us feel like he deserved a lot better and I'm hoping this will give him something he should have had in Season Four.
Holding Out for a Hero - Bonnie Tyler
Beck's palms began to sweat looking across the cafeteria at Hawkins High School and was relieved when she heard someone call her name. Sarah motioned her over and Beck gratefully joined the theater kids. Some of them she had already met from their elective drama class in the morning and she was quickly introduced to everyone else.
Hawkins was not a school that had a large pool of people with theater experience so everyone was curious about what shows she had been in and what her skills were. She had started explaining her experience with stage makeup but the sound of shouting on her right pulled her attention away.
A tall senior with wavy brown hair, far too many rings, and a jacket with every metal band's patch on it was dramatically giving a speech to his table, voices and all.
Beck nodded toward him as she caught the annoyed looks the others were giving him. "Who is that and why isn't he in theater?"
"Eddie? Someone said Mrs. Ward tried to get him involved when he was a freshman and it bombed."
She watched him for a moment longer, his expressive face with glowing as he led the campaign. His smile was infectious and – She started as their eyes met, whipping back around to the drama kids.
Across the cafeteria, Eddie looked up ready to spring the next trap on his group and noticed someone watching him. He was used to being stared at but he had never seen her before, had never seen anyone like her before. She was pale to the point that her veins stood out blue on her arms and her hair was almost white it was so blonde. She looked like a textbook picture of an albino.
He tilted his head at her and their eyes held for a moment before she turned away too quickly.
"My GOD, what does the frost giant do?!" Jeff cut through his thoughts and Eddie snapped back to the game.
Sixth period came around and Eddie really never stopped being annoyed that schools were allowed to make them run around outside at the hottest time of day, especially in August. That and his complete refusal to change in the locker room meant he regularly camped out under the bleachers; today he was working on a homebrew monster that had come to him from the blue during science.
When he looked up later, he saw Miss Pale (as he had badly nicknamed her) sitting in the shade of a tree nearby and reading The Gunslinger.
Footsteps behind him put him on high alert but it was quickly clear they were not coming for him.
Beck hated the way that gym drew more attention to her outsider status. She was more sun sensitive than most so she had gotten medical accommodations from her doctor before they moved, which meant she got to hang out in the shade if they were outside.
She was so deep into her book that she didn't realize anyone was near her until someone yanked her book out of her hands.
"New and not participating I see," said a girl in a bright pink polo and shockingly white shorts.
"Can I have my book?"
"What makes you so special? I've tried to get out of gym for ages."
Beck shaded her eyes, which had started watering trying to stare up at the girl.
"I can't be in the sun very much. Don't worry, I'll be just as miserable as you when we're inside," she tried to explain.
The girl's eyebrows jumped and she looked between the two friends she had brought with her. "No sun? Let's see about that."
The girl in pink walked backward until she was beside the bleachers, in the sun but out of sight from the gym teacher, and started to tear the cover off the paperback.
Eddie watched this from his "lair" with mounting anger, recognizing Jennifer from his math class. HOW were assholes like her always finding people to harass into misery? Fuck this town.
He had moved into a low crouch when he saw Miss Pale up and running at Jennifer. Her speed clearly caught the older girl off guard and Jennifer dodged out of the way, shoving the pale girl as she passed. There was a deep clanging sound that reverberated through the bleachers behind him as the pale girl's head connected with one of the steps before she hit the ground.
With no thought about what he was about to do, Eddie rushed out from under the bleachers, screaming wildly and windmilling his arms, hoping for a real life equivalent of D&D surprise advantage.
Jennifer lept back from him, tripping and landing flat on her ass before getting back to her feet and bolting away from him. After she and her lackeys were a safe distance they cursed at him, calling him a freak. He flipped them off before jogging back to the pale girl.
Beck was on all fours in the dirt when the guy who had rushed past her screaming like a fucking barbarian took her shoulders and helped her sit back against one of the supports.
She caught sight of a handful of skull rings on her shoulder and laughed despite herself. His expressive face telegraphed confusion so she explained, "I really should have guessed it was you screaming like that."
He grinned back at her and her stomach flipped over; his smile was gorgeous. She watched as he looked over her face for injury and his expression dropped into stormy anger. He fished around in his pockets and handed her a bandana.
"Here," he said, gently running a finger above the cut on her forehead. "You're bleeding."
As she wiped blood from the cut and her forehead, Eddie located her book and gently tried to straighten the pages out, breathing hard through his nose to try to lower the surging anger he felt. Goddamn assholes had no fucking respect and hurting her just because they could…
Her voice cut through his thoughts and he had to ask her to repeat what she had said.
"I said thanks for your help. You're Eddie right?"
"In the flesh." He bowed elaborately. "Your name, mi'lady?"
"Rebecca but please call me Beck."
He handed her book back to her and sitting beside her. "I'd ask how you like Hawkins so far but it's hell on earth so instead: how do you like The Dark Tower series so far, Beck?"
She rolled her eyes. "I mean other than the villain being the guy who goes around healing people and taking care of the poor?"
He perked up, reevaluating her. Fucking finally there was someone who might get it.
"Can't escape the capitalist agenda, not even in fucking fantasy," he quipped, sneaking a sidelong look at her to see her smiling at him.
"Not even in D&D?"
"God no. Somehow it's even worse." He turned to look at her more fully. He hadn't had the time in the chaos to really see her up close but ... wow. Her eyes were denim blue with a pink rim around her iris, shaded by long white lashes. He cast his eyes up from her eyes, past her white eyebrows to the cut on her head.
He stood and offered her his hand; Beck took it, warm and slightly calloused. She noted the bats flying up his forearm and when she stumbled a bit regaining her feet she felt his other hand on her shoulder, gently holding her up.
"You okay?" he asked with genuine concern.
"Yeah…" she touched her forehead, which had slowed down its bleeding. "It's not my first rodeo."
Reluctantly, she let go of his hand and moved away from him. "I should go to the nurse. Get this cleaned out."
"Right! Probably should!" Eddie felt incredibly awkward now and gave a little wave as she headed back into the school.
Pros and cons, Eddie thought a few weeks later.
Con - They were STILL outside for gym a few times a week.
Pro - Beck had started regularly joining him when he managed to escape to the bleachers. The two of them had developed a comfortable routine, sometimes talking and sometimes just being together in comfortable silence. It didn't seem like she was still getting bullied when she was around him, but he had seen dark bruises on her upper arm a week ago.
She was sitting next to him, her straight hair pulled back from her neck to help with the heat and lying on her stomach reading. He was acutely aware of her position because her black gym shorts contrasted dramatically with her skin and put her thighs and ass on full display. He pulled his eyes back to the Monster Manual propped between his knees and tried to buckle down with campaign prep.
Beck dog eared The Gunslinger and propped herself up on her elbows with her chin in her hands. Her face was pink with the heat and she looked so hot. He drove one of his rings into his leg out of her sight to distract himself. Literally, he told himself; he meant she literally looked like she was temperature hot.
"You have any Halloween plans?" Beck asked, watching his face closely. She had quickly learned that paying any attention to his face gave a pretty clear read of what he was feeling in a given moment.
He pulled his full lower lip under his front teeth. "Maybe band? If we can find a bar that will let us?"
"Well I have a proposition for you," she teased and was pleased to see his cheeks grow pink. She pulled a half sheet from her book and handed it to him.
"Costume party?" he asked, eyebrow cocked and his lip almost curling in disdain. "Yeah I don't … socialize"
"It will be worth your time. I promise."
He met her eyes and held her gaze, leaning forward to prop one of his elbows on his knee, cupping his chin in his hand to copy her position. A puppy-ish grin spread across his face and something low in her belly clenched.
"You promise? Well how could I say no."
High school Halloween party, perfect opportunity for a slasher, Eddie thought as he walked up the steps to the far-too-nice-for-him house the party was at.
He slipped in, popping the collar of the leather jacket he had dug out of his dad's old stuff and scanning for people he knew. He didn't see anyone so he pushed his way through to the kitchen, trying to calm his rising anxiety at being alone in a crowd with the promise he could drink if nothing else.
After pounding a cupful of cheap booze, he caught the sound of a familiar laugh and moved towards it. He had to scan the room twice before realizing Beck was standing directly in his sightline.
Her pale face was made gaunt and grey with stage makeup, cheekbones carved to a sharp point and eye sockets hollow, but the mouth was what stunned him. He stared openly at the two rows of sharp teeth that ran from ear to ear, overlapping her actual mouth inside of the maw she had created.
After glancing back to the kitchen, Beck's friend Sarah elbowed her.
"Someone's staring," Sarah said with a wicked grin.
"I did promise him it would be worth it if he came," Beck quipped, trying to hide how delighted she was at seeing him there. His open amazement flooded her with several kinds of excitement. She pushed her way over to him and he kept his eyes on her the entire time, making her blush which was mercifully hidden under her makeup.
"What do you think? Worth it?" she asked, twirling.
"It's incredible…" he breathed, moving in close to examine her. "Absolutely beautiful…"
His hand rose to her face, fingertips trailing her jaw and goosebumps forming where he touched her.
"You can't even see the seam," he said, finally moving back to her great disappointment.
"It's my specialty. I want to do special effects makeup for horror movies someday."
"Badass!" Again she got his delighted smile. "What's a favorite?"
"For makeup? The Fly was pretty insane. But what's YOUR costume, Eddie Munson?"
"American Werewolf in Paris of course!" He snapped the collar and spun on the heels of his Doc Martens, throwing up hands like claws when he stopped facing her. He had run fingers with some fake blood across his face and not shaved that day to complete the look.
Eddie watched her eyes sparkle at him with coy amusement. "What?"
"I think we can do better than some party shop blood… Come on!"
She grabbed his wrist and tugged him upstairs with her. He followed willingly, trying to shove what he knew bedrooms and bathrooms were for at parties out of his brain to no avail.
"Sit," she commanded, pointing to the toilet and grabbing a makeup kit from under the sink.
When he was sitting, Beck's instinct for makeup kicked in and paired up with her knowledge of the 1981 classic. She gently held his jaw, tilting his head so she could run different shades of red from his eyebrow down the bridge of his nose and to the opposite jawline. She repeated this process on his forehead in gashes and in on a wide swath of his cheek, before pulling out incision plasters and gluing them along the gashes she had created. She topped the whole thing off with better fake blood syrup and gloss on the wounds.
"There we are," she said as she finished daubing the gloss. She still held the side of Eddie's face and it now struck her how long they had been alone in here for and how close they were to one another. She could feel the light stubble of his jaw and his hair tickled the back of her hand. He finally opened his deep brown eyes and she was absorbed in them. She ran her thumb across his cheek and jaw before whipping her hand back and moving over to the mirror, embarrassed that she had acted like that without even thinking.
"Take a look and see what you think!" she exclaimed, trying to cover for her weird behavior.
"You are a fucking genius," he marveled, running his fingers across his far more convincing wounds.
"Indeed I am. Which means I get to show you off."
"Only if you join my next D&D campaign."
Beck was caught off guard. She had heard Eddie rant about new players even in the short time she had known him.
"I have no idea how to play."
"I'll teach you."
She couldn't help it but a laugh burst out of her. "You're not known for your willingness to take on new players."
He faced her, leaning back against the sink in a way that made her want to wrap her arms around his lean waist. "Yeah but you're definitely different."
"Well I can't say no to that, now can I?"
Eddie finally managed to leave after extracting the promise that he could help her build a character for his Ravenloft campaign and being appropriately shown off to the others at the party. He hated being stared at but she had done an amazing job and deserved all praise.
He whipped off the leather jacket, fanning himself with his white t-shirt. It had been far too hot in there and that time with Beck had not helped. She had been all but in his lap for the entire time, her thighs constantly on his as she stood between his spread legs, which was just far too unfair. He may have deserved a medal for digging his fingernails into his knees the whole time just to keep from touching her. And he had finally closed his eyes to stop staring straight into her chest and memorizing the outline. So maybe two medals.
He shook his head wildly, trying to clear it but there was no way he was going to be free of her so easily. And to be honest, he didn't really want to be rid her of all. He wanted to roll initiative on this girl and follow the path to it's end.
Thoughts appreciated! If there's interest I'll continue with it!