Running Up That Hill - Kate Bush
Beck's already sore hip hit the floor of the trailer and she started madly scrambling away from wherever she had fallen from.
"Hey it's okay!" Eddie was trying to catch her shoulders and soothe her but her eyes were wild and it took her a minute to recognize him as outside of her dream.
"You're okay…" he said again and she met his wide brown eyes and nodded unsteadily, her heart slamming. "You were yelling in your sleep. What was it?"
Beck had dreamed that Eddie was in prison and that she had been given back to her mother as a dependent to prevent her from having serve jail time with him. Needless to say her mother had made her daily life a prison in her own "special" ways.
"It was my mom," she murmured, surveying the room for who other than Eddie had noticed. The freshmen were with Steve and Nancy in the kitchen which left Erica who was still sleeping and Robin who was now watching Beck like a hawk.
Beck shot the other girl a pleading look and Robin narrowed her eyes at Beck and slightly jerked her head at Eddie. But to Beck's relief Robin got up after a moment to leave the two of them alone.
"I'm sorry, love," Eddie said, pressing a kiss to her temple. "You're safe from her at least."
She suppressed a wince as he did this and took a bowl of cereal from Lucas. Her head was also throbbing but she was not going to offer that information any time soon. She hated hiding stuff from him, but she was determined to focus on the larger issue of his potential murder trial or death.
The mood of the group became more somber as Nancy said she was ready to tell them what she had seen. The sun was peeking through the curtains as they all took places around the living room to listen. She described a horde of monsters spilling into Hawkins and started to cry as she explained that Vecna had showed her a vision of her mother and her younger sister and her brother. It was an upsetting vision to be sure but Beck couldn't help thinking that this was just Hawkins and if they just drove away far enough, fast enough...
"And there was something else," she continued at the doubting look on some of their faces. "He showed me gates, four gates spreading across Hawkins."
"Four chimes," Max said suddenly. "Vecna's clock always chimes four times exactly. He's been telling us his plan this whole time."
Beck's hope of escaping died and Eddie swore and laced his fingers through hers, a gesture that was complete second nature to him.
"If that's true, he's only one kill away," Dustin said.
That sent a wave of alarm through all of them and Steve told Max to try calling their friends again. Eddie looked over at Beck and saw her flinch at Steve's exclamation and he could see her temple tic. He had been watching her closely since she woke up yelling and knew she wasn't feeling well so he asked her if she was going to be okay.
Before Beck could respond Robin cut in, "How long have you been having headaches, Beck? And nightmares?"
Beck glowered but Eddie to answered for her, immediately recognizing that something had been kept from him.
"This is the second time she's woken up yelling," he said to Robin. Then to Beck he said, "And you've said your head hurts since Skull Rock."
"Wait seriously, Beck?" Dustin asked, alarm so clear on his face that Eddie pulled his hand from hers and turned to face her on the couch.
"Beck? What is it?"
But she just shook her head before getting up to go dig Tylenol out of a cabinet.
"Vecna targets people who… have had terrible things happen to them," Max explained haltingly, having not been able to reach the others by phone. "That's how he picks who he will kill next and the symptoms are headaches, nightmares, nosebleeds, and hallucinations."
"And you knew this?" he asked her as she leaned against the wall facing him. He knew his voice was betraying how much this hurt him to everyone in the room but he hadn't even suspected she would hide something like this from him.
"There's no reason to assume any of this means anything!" she exclaimed before turning to the rest of the group and pleading with them to agree with her. "Everything that has happened would be reason enough for headaches or nightmares in a healthy person and I am NOT a healthy person!"
Robin crossed her arms, clearly concerned for Beck and not willing to let this go. "And that's a risk you're willing to take? You're willing to gamble that this is nothing? With your life?"
And Beck yelled "yes" at the same time that Eddie leapt to his feet and yelled "no."
"Absolutely not!" he shouted again. "Jesus H Christ! I have not survived all shit just for you to get off'ed by this Freddy Kreuger knock off and start the apocalypse!"
Beck had not seen him look this angry at her in a very long time. His eyes were burning holes through her and his hands were in such tight fists his knuckles were white. Her cheeks burned with guilt and she crossed the room to him, working his hands open from their fists gently and kissing his knuckles.
"You're right," she whispered so only he could hear her and he thudded back down, motioning for her to sit back down beside him. Eddie was still fucking furious but he moved her hair off her neck and rubbed at the base of her skull, choosing to work out his anger on the knotted muscles there. On the other side of him, Erica edged away from him slightly, worried about setting him off.
"Vecna can't hurt her or anyone else if he's dead," Nancy insisted. "We have to go back through."
That got a strong negative reaction from absolutely everyone so she and Steve started arguing about if they could even survive an attack on Vecna. And then things devolved into talking about this magic girl they knew and how they could attack Vecna if they could get Vecna to attack someone else with his mind.
"Then we sneak in and attack Vecna," Robin agreed. "But don't know who he is going to target next."
"I'm still marked. If I ditch Kate Bush, I draw his focus back to me," Max said and Beck whipped her head up so fast that she winced in pain.
"Max, Vecna will kill you," Lucas pleaded and she tried to reassure him by saying she had survived before and that this could help her keep him busy long enough for them to kill Vecna.
"And what other option do we have?" Max concluded. "If we don't then Beck dies or I die and then everyone dies."
After an unnaturally long pause where the only sound was Eddie's knee bouncing with impressive speed, Steve finally asked, "So how do we fight him once that happens?"
Eddie hadn't been able to add a lot to the conversation since it had turned to all this stuff from before this spring but now he popped up as if those were the magic words and pulled the phone book out from a kitchen drawer. This was a question he could answer and he was grateful for the distraction.
"This should do it," he said as he thumbed through the yellow pages and the others gathered around him. He pointed at a large ad with a guy who looked like Rambo under the words The War Zone. "I've been here one time. They have everything you would need for... killing things."
"When the hell were you there?" Beck asked with amusement and vague alarm, crossing her arms. "And what the hell did you buy?"
Eddie grinned back at her and the tension between them broke as he turned his thousand killowatt smile on her.
"Those handcuffs had to come from somewhere," he purred, leaning his face into hers and Beck felt a knot in her chest loosen as she rolled her eyes at him and playfully pushed his face away.
"How is any of this legal?" Robin asked, understandably alarmed.
"Lucky for us it is," Eddie said with an annoyed jerk of his head toward her. "This place is just far enough outside of Hawkins that as long as we steer clear of main roads we oughtta be able to avoid cops and… angry hicks."
"So that takes care of get Vecna's attention and how we fight him but how do we distract the army of bats?" Robin asked, pointing at Steve's neck which was still a livid red.
"Suggestion," Beck cut in. "Half the firefighters came into the diner furious last fall because some kids had a massive stash of fireworks they had been called in to confiscate. This was after the mall fire and the fireworks were all just locked up in a shed. That would definitely distract some bats, right?"
"That will get their attention but we need something that will pull them away from the house," Dustin agreed. "Like something loud for a long time with the fireworks."
"You know what fireworks go well with?" Eddie said, a grin spreading across his lips.
"What?" said Nancy
"Absolutely not," Beck said. "I hate this idea."
"What idea?"
"The most metal concert ever," Eddie said, far too pleased with himself for Beck's liking.
"Okay that's actually a great idea," said Steve and if looks could kill Beck would have sucked the life out of him right where he stood.
"So Beck lights off a ton of fireworks and Eddie starts playing… something," Robin summarized.
"Dustin can light fireworks," Eddie objected. "Beck stays here."
Beck's eyebrows shot straight up into her bangs and she snapped, "Does she now?"
Eddie turned to her but she was already in his face, setting her jaw and trying to take up as much space as she could. There was a flicker of pride in the back of his mind as he recognized that she was imitating what she had seen from him.
"I don't want you going in there," he growled at her, trying and failing to not be absorbed by her lilac eyes and how her white eyelashes fluttered against her flushed cheeks.
"And I don't want you going in there without me. So it's both or none, sweetheart," she retorted, voice alarmingly sweet. "And if you try to stop me, I'll break every one of your fingers and you'll be staying here with me."
Eddie scowled, and she moved in even closer. Her lips ghosted past his, unintentionally pulled to him as she noticed his flushed lips and blown out pupils. He acutely felt her breasts pressing into his chest and his breathing hitched, the energy between them palpably changed to something far more intimate. For all of the catfighting they seemed to be doing, it was all from this obvious place of care and the intensity of each moment kept tightening a cord of attraction between them that was bound to snap.
Steve coughed, desperate to interrupt this moment, and said, "So that was…"
He didn't really know where he was going with this sentence and opted for saying "extreme" at the same moment Eddie said "hot." Nancy laughed despite herself as Steve threw his hands in the air and then put them on his hips in his angry mom pose. His confusion was one of his more endearing qualities really.
"These are great plans but we don't have any way of getting to any of this."
Eddie said he would take care of that and when Steve asked if Eddie had a secret car, Eddie turned to him with obvious annoyance. "It's not exactly a car, Steve, and it's not exactly mine but… it'll do."
He caught Beck's eyes, mouth quirking into a smile that was way too pleased with himself, and she rolled her eyes before heading to his bedroom.
"Where are you going?" Robin asked her while Eddie asked Max for something to cover his face.
"This plan requires specialized tools," Beck called back, digging around in his closet before returning with a small canvas bag. She was back in time to see Max hand Eddie a Michael Meyers mask and laughed aloud.
"Oh you find this funny?" he asked playfully, taking the bag from her and poking her in the ribs. She twisted into his arms and he gave her a playful peck on the lips before pulling the mask over his head.
"Follow me," he ordered and they all snuck out of the trailer after him.
Eddie led them around the back of an RV as indirectly as he could without getting them all spotted and slid open the furthest back window. He was through the window before Beck had time to object that this was not the easiest feat for some of them. Steve gestured for her to step into his hand and he boosted her up to the window where Eddie waited to help drag her through.
When she was in the RV with him, Eddie pulled off the mask griped, "That was suffocating" as he snuck toward the driver's seat.
Bek helped haul Steve through the window and smirked over at Eddie. "You? Complaining about being choked? That's a first."
And she repressed giggles as he did an immediate 180, slipping his hands into her back pockets and pulling her to him to part her lips with his tongue in a deep kiss.
Steve was helping Erica through the window and looked at them like they were the most insane couple on the earth as Eddie pulled away from Beck and plopped down in the driver's seat.
Beck shrugged at him and said, "Seemed to work for Sid and Nancy," before returning to the window to help up Max.
"It literally didn't though!" Steve objected to no one in particular, shaking his head and joining Eddie. The metalhead had wirecutters in his mouth and had yanked a handful of wires from under the dash, starting to snip with obvious precision.
"Where'd you learn how to do this?" he asked in disbelief and Eddie could hear the judgment far too clearly. He was tired of being judged so a little reality check seemed to be in order for the former Hawkins king.
"Well when the other dads were teaching their kids how to fish or play ball, my old man was teaching me how to hotwire," he ssid through gritted teeth as he stripped the coating off the wires and tossed the cutters onto the floor.
"Now I swore to myself I wouldn't wind up like he did," Eddie continued, dragging the exposed wires over one another to hear the sparking sound that indicated this would work, "but now… I'm wanted for murder and soon grand theft auto so I'm really living up to that Munson name."
Someone reached over and pinched hard on his ear, so he spun around swearing and was met with Steve holding his hands up like he was in a stand off and Beck leaning past him.
"You are NOT your father," Beck reprimanded Eddie, "and you are NOT driving."
"Oh I'm just starting this sucker," he told her, grinning stupidly up at the two of them. "Harrington's got it, don't you big boy?"
He figured it wouldn't hurt to put the oblivious jock in charge of something he could actually help with and snapped the wire ends across one another. The RV leapt to life with lights and a blast of exhaust and the owners sitting outside immediately began yelling and pounding on the locked door.
Eddie grinned up at Steve and Beck before ducking around them and catching Beck's hand to pull her with him. Steve jumped into the driver's seat and yelled for everyone to hold on before flooring it. He pulled her into his lap as he fell into a seat across from Lucas and Beck burst out laughing as she caught sight of his expression.
"You're such a chaos goblin!" she shouted at him over the music blasting and the others yelling.
"I'm your chaos goblin," he corrected before headbanging along with the Creedence Clearwater Revival tape that was playing.
Once Steve's driving evened out and everyone calmed down, Eddie helped him figure out a route that would keep them off main roads and would still get them there in good time.
Beck had moved to the couch along the back of the RV and was staring out the window with her forehead against the glass, watching trees and fields go by, struck as always by how scenically boring Indiana was. Eddie fell onto the couch beside her but when he didn't make any contact with her, Beck turned to him.
"I'm sorry you had to see that," he said, staring at his hands and twisting his rings around.
"What? Why? I know you can hotwire," she said, confused by his sudden shift in mood.
"Yeah but I didn't think you would ever see it. I thought I was done with all that shit," he said, still not looking at her. "You deserve better than a freak, hotwiring drug dealer who can't even graduate."
"Yeah and you're with a poor-as-shit albino whore who lived with her high school boyfriend and was abused by her mom. Us freaks have to stick together," Beck said and pushed under his elbow so that she was inside the circle of his arms.
"Don't you ever feel like I can't handle ugly shit," she said, echoing his words from what felt like a lifetime ago. "I would do anything for you."
He rested his cheek on the top of her head and she could feel him smiling. "Including breaking my fingers."
"Especially breaking your fingers," she teased back and the two of them settled into a comfortable silence.
Three chapters in a week so consider it fall feast holiday gift if you celebrate!
Comments would be SO appreciated! It's been a while and I'm dying to hear what you think about the current direction of the story.