On sinking ships

Hawkins, March 26, 1986

The 'fuckery' in question was Dustin, Max, Eddie, and Chrissy spending the night at Reefer Rick's cabin on the shores of Lover's Lake. Eddie had tried to argue that it was a stupid idea, given that someone had just died there and was likely to be crawling with cops, but Dustin and Max were relentless.

"There's no gate in the Creel house," Dustin had told them, to which Max nodded. "Nancy didn't see one when she found Fred, either. We need to check Lover's Lake. El isn't here to open a gate for us, we have to find our own."

"Besides," Max threw in, "if Chrissy can't go home and we can't stay in the trailer park because Jason knows we were there, and we can't raise suspicion with anyone else's parents…"

So, the four of them skulked through the dark woods and Eddie used his key—"Rick's a supplier"—on the cabin's back door. They hunkered down for the rest of the night, none of them sleeping, none of them with anything much to say. The TV was too much of a risk. Instead, they all sat in the dark living room floor, the faint sound of Kate Bush streaming from Max's headphones. They watched the intermittent play of the flashlights cutting through the night as the Hawkins Police Department patrolled the area.

Dustin sat close to the window, taking a peek now and then when the lights were farther away. Nearby to him, Max sat curled in on herself, chin resting on her knees. There was some segregation in the little ragtag group hiding in a convicted drug dealer's house. Across the living room, Eddie and Chrissy sat side by side with their backs to the couch. Other than Eddie asking a time or two if she were okay, this pair didn't speak either. Sometime during the night, though, Chrissy laid her head on Eddie's shoulder. She kept it there until the sun began to rise.

"What's the plan, then?" Eddie asked when day broke, and the black shadows lightened to gray. He was the first to push himself from the floor. After ensuring all the blinds and curtains were drawn tight, Eddie began poking through the kitchen until he came up triumphant with a can of spaghetti-o's. He dumped the can into a pot and set it on the stove, turning to face the others.

"Lucas is on the way," Dustin said, shaking his radio. "The others, too. We'll talk about it when they get here."

"Did you warn them about…?" Chrissy waved a hand around. She looked pale for Eddie's liking, and dark circles underscored her eyes that he was sure could rival his own bruise. Even so, she seemed calmer today than she had the day before.

Perhaps kicking that asshat Jason Carver to the curb was exactly what she needed.

"That the hills are alive with the sound of police sirens?" Dustin finished for her. "Yeah, they know. I told them to be careful."

With the daylight eliminating the chance of them exposing themselves unintentionally should anyone see the glow of the TV, Max began flipping through channels until she landed on the local news. While the spaghetti-o's warmed up on the stove, the four of them crowded around the old box television to listen to the report of Patrick's death.

According to the local boys in blue, there was a killer—presumed serial, now that there were two victims fitting the same description of death—on the loose in Hawkins. The second teenager to be found with snapped bones and eyes gouged from their sockets. They all gave a shiver at that description. No leads, though the public was urged to step forward should they know or suspect anything.

When the spaghetti-o's were warmed, Eddie spooned portions into four bowls and passed them around. They ate on the living room floor, none of them paying attention to the soap opera that came on directly after the news. Eddie was fairly certain Max only left the TV on to fill the empty air as they waited. It was Chrissy who collected the emptied bowls. She stacked them in the palm of her hand and took them to the kitchen sink.

Eddie couldn't help smirking as he watched her. Leaving the younger teenagers in the living room, he followed Chrissy into the kitchen. "Are you really doing dishes in the middle of this whole world-shattering thing we got going on here?"

"Would you want to come home from a prison stint and find out some teenagers crashed at your place without cleaning up and now your kitchen is moldy and gross?"

"Touché." Eddie crossed his arms and leaned on the counter, watching her in the morning light. She still wore his t-shirt from the day before, but she had let her hair free from its braid and scraped it in a messy, wavy ponytail instead. Still pale, especially after the news report, but there was definitely something firmer about her today. A determined set to the shoulders, a confidence in the straightness of her spine.

"What did you call it last night? Fuckery?" She peeked up at him from beneath her bangs. A ray of sunlight cut through her eyes, lightening the blue to a piercing shade. "What do you think will happen today?"

"Too much, I'm sure." Eddie flicked his own gaze back to the living room. Max and Dustin had moved, too. The two of them were crouched low and peeking through the front window through the blinds. Looking for the others or for the arrival of the police presence, Eddie wasn't sure. But as he watched, Henderson's head swiveled so quickly on his neck that his curls went flying and his hat nearly fell from his head.

"Lucas gave the signal. Let's go."

"What signal?" Eddie asked, reaching past Chrissy to turn off the water streaming over the half-cleaned dishes. "Go where? You can't keep leaving us blind as shit in the dark, Henderson."

That earned Eddie an eye roll from the kid. "We're going to Skull Rock. You wanna hold a rendezvous where the cops could very easily interrupt? No? Okay, then. Maybe if you paid attention to something besides each other, you'd be in the damn loop."

And that left Eddie with burning cheeks as he glared at the back of Henderson's head. He found himself unable to look back at Chrissy, lest she see his stupid blush. But he could feel her, just behind him, hanging close as they followed Max and Dustin to the door. After scanning the tree line, he found Lucas hanging back in the shadows, waving them forward.

"We'll go first," Dustin decided, taking Max's hand in his. He looked around, made sure no one had yet arrived on the scene, and made a mad dash for the trees. Eddie and Chrissy, however, lingered in the doorway. The latter took a deep breath, releasing it in a sigh.

"We're really doing this?" She asked, peeking up at him beneath her bangs once more. "I feel like this is our last chance to turn back."

"You wanna go home?" Eddie chuckled at the emphatic way she shook her head. He held his hand out to her, palm up. "Didn't think so. The shire's burning, Chris. Mordor it is."

There was no time for her to question his words, though her furrowed brow spoke of her confusion. The moment she placed her hand in his, Eddie gripped it tightly and ran. It was a short run through dewy grass, the morning air chilly on his cheeks. Once under the cover of the trees, the younger teenagers urged them forward.

"Ever heard Skull Rock called Make Out Rock?" Lucas asked, heading the expedition to the rock in question. Trees had swallowed them up. Max and Henderson no longer held hands but neither Eddie nor Chrissy had tried to disengage from the other.

"No? Who the hell—Steve?" Dustin questioned, absolutely no surprise in the question. Lucas nodded and laughed, his smile bright in his dark face. "Of course he would."

"Right? He's kind of a jackass sometimes, huh?"

"Yeah, yeah, jackass Steve Harrington," Dustin mumbled in reply. He was focused more so on the compass he held in his hand. So focused, in fact, that he overtook Lucas and continued mumbling to himself as he did so. Lucas merely shrugged and hung back until he was able to walk beside Max.

Eddie spared a single glance back over his shoulder to confirm Max was good with Lucas before pulling Chrissy forward. "Why are you arguing with a compass?"

"Look at it." Henderson all but shoved the compass beneath Eddie's nose. He felt his eyes cross as he tried to focus on it.

"Looks like a compass to me. Look like a compass to you, Chrissy?" She didn't get to answer, for Dustin had given an indignant snort and yanked it away.

"The needle is pointing north behind us, and that's wrong. We're heading north, more or less. The needle should be pointing forward, not backward."

"Is it broken?" Chrissy asked. An innocent enough question, or so Eddie thought, until Dustin glared at her over his shoulder. Eddie reached out with his free hand and knocked Dustin on the side of the head. Dustin didn't elaborate further after that. He kept his head bent over his compass, scowling at it all the while, and pulling ahead of the others.

"I can confidently say the past few days are the weirdest fucking thing to ever happen to me," Eddie grumbled, not quite sure if he was talking to himself or to Chrissy.

"Being haunted by a tentacle monster from another dimension is still winning for me," came Chrissy's soft reply beside him. He gave her hand a squeeze, hoping it was reassuring.

"Fred Benson was in that wreck where someone died, Red back there lost her brother… Patrick McKinney probably had something going on, too," he ventured. Dustin was far enough ahead that he was a smudge of blue backpack and teal shirt up ahead. Max and Lucas had fallen back, the two of them having their own hushed conversation. It was the first time he had posed any inquisition into Chrissy's involvement with Vecna. Yet he couldn't even bring himself to ask, dancing around it instead.

Beside him, Chrissy was quiet for so long that he thought she wasn't going to take the bait. She was looking resolutely ahead, watching Henderson's back. Then she sighed, deflating a little with her exhale. "My mom. Well, Jason too, but I can't just break up with my mom like I did Jason."

Now that she was talking, Chrissy didn't seem able to stop. "I mean, I don't want you to think he was abusive or anything. Jason just… didn't listen. Not to anything that didn't fit his idea of normal or real. And I, I just couldn't afford that anymore. Not with this Vecna thing going on. I mean, you saw. He wasn't going to listen or believe any of it. But my mom, she… she's like Jason, I guess. She wants things a certain way. She's not nice when things aren't the way she wants them."

Chrissy punctuated her words with a shrug. If she had more to say, there wasn't time for it; they had come to the clump of bushes and trees that surrounded Skull Rock. They followed Dustin through, finding Steve, Nancy, and Robin waiting for them.

"Hey, Dust—okay. What's with him?" Steve asked when Dustin walked right by him, ignoring the greeting and stalking around the rock with his head still bent over the compass.

"It's not broken," Chrissy supplied in answer, making Eddie laugh outright.

"Okay, well… did you guys learn anything from camping out near the lake?" Steve pressed on, clearly nonplussed.

"No," Max cut in. "Nothing happened. No lights flickering, neither me or Chrissy felt anything."

"We didn't find anything on the road where Fred died, either," Nancy said softly. "We didn't go back to the Creel house, though… maybe that would be something? I think that surge of power while we were there at the house was a signal of some kind, maybe it coincided with when Vecna attacked Patrick?"

"We need to find a way into the Upside Down," Lucas asserted. "That's where Vecna is. I don't know how we're gonna get there without El, but…"

"We need to get to the Upside Down and drive a stake through Vecna's heart, or something." Max agreed. "It's not going to stop unless we do it ourselves."

"A stake?" Steve asked, confusion crumpling his face. "Is he like a vamp? Is he a vampire?"

"It was a metaphor," Max snapped just when Eddie asked, "A bullet should work on him, right?"

"I say we chop his head off," Lucas threw in.

"Yeah, I'd say all of the above, but we can't do any of that until we find a way into the Upside Down," Nancy said, tone hard and authoritative, aborting the roundtable talk of how to kill the tentacle creep.

"We need El to get her powers back," Max lamented.

"Yeah, everything was waaay easier," Steve agreed, turning toward Eddie and Chrissy. "We had this girl, she had superpowers."

"Superpowers," Chrissy repeated, nodding. "We've heard."

All the while, Dustin had been pacing back and forth over the thick layer of leaf fall. It cushioned the sound of his footsteps, but the frantic energy of his pacing was starting to set Eddie on edge as he watched. "Hey, Henderson, uh, you're not cursed, too, or something, right?"

As he asked, Henderson stilled, his back to the rest of the group. For a moment, Eddie was truly terrified the kid was about to start floating the way Max had in the cemetery. He dropped Chrissy's hand to take a step toward Dustin, meaning to lay a hand on his shoulder. Only the kid turned, excitement evident in his wide eyes and the wider smile on his lips. "BOOM!"

Seven confused faces met Dustin's excitement. Eddie had always known the boy to be prone to dramatics—not that he couldn't say the same of himself—but he was taking the cake just then. "Bada… bada… boom," Dustin continued, pointing to each of them in turn. "I was right. Skull Rock was north."

"You're still on about your broken fucking compass, man?" Eddie snapped, curling his fist against the urge to snatch the thing off Henderson's belt.

"This is Skull Rock," Steve threw in. He didn't even have to endure the entirety of Dustin's obsession with the compass, but he sounded just as exasperated as Eddie felt. "You're wrong."

"Yes and no," Dustin went on, lapsing into something that looked worryingly close to lunacy as he explained. "This compass worked correctly when we left the Creel house yesterday. It was correct when we left Eddie's last night, but it started to slip the closer we got to Reefer Rick's. We were in one place all night so it's not like I could check it there. It kept slipping while we hiked here, now its way off. The needle is stuck, pointing 'North' back toward Lover's Lake."

"So you're using faulty equipment, dude, you're still wrong." Steve threw his hands up, giving life to all the frustrations Eddie currently felt with Henderson's monologuing.

"Except, it isn't faulty," Dustin countered. "Lucas, you remember what can affect a compass?"

"An electromagnetic field," Lucas' voice warmed as he spoke, clearly catching on to Dustin's train of thought while all the rest continued to be left in the dark. Eddie looked over his shoulder at Chrissy, mouthing a heartfelt 'what the hell?' only for her to shake her head in response. At least he wasn't alone in the confusion.

"In the presence of a stronger electromagnetic field, the needle will deflect towards that power. So either there's some super big magnet around here, or…"

"There's a gate!" Lucas finished, excitement lighting up his face.

"We're nowhere near the lab," Nancy argued at once.

"But what if, somehow, there's another gate?" Dustin argued, settling fully into conspiracy mode. "A gate we don't know about. It would have to be smaller, way less powerful."

"Snack-size gate," Robin agreed, nodding as if any of this conversation made sense. Chrissy slipped her hand into Eddie's once more.

"How?" Steve asked sharply, clearly looking to poke a hole in the story Dustin was crafting.

"No idea," Dustin answered, unphased. "All I know is that something is causing this disturbance, and the last time we've seen anything like it, it was a gate. And I hope it is, because then we'd have a way to Vecna. A shot of breaking this curse."

Without waiting for the endorsement of the others, Dustin began doubling back on the path he had led to the rock in the first place. The rest were left to exchange a look with each other, all their faces seeming to echo the same hope-tinged fear. But none more so than Chrissy. Seeing that tentative hope in her blue eyes was the deciding factor for Eddie. He shifted his hand in her hold so he could twine their fingers together. With a firm grip on Chrissy's hand, he begrudgingly began to follow Henderson once more.

They waited for nightfall once the straggling Hawkins police force disbanded their investigation. Steve had thought ahead. While camping in the thick woods around Lover's Lake, the group ate granola bars and trail mix, talking only in the softest whispers as afternoon slipped to evening, evening to night.

Unbeknownst—overlooked, really, considering that there had been two unsolved murders in one week—the teenagers' absence from home hadn't gone unnoticed. Especially that of the group who had spent the night at Reefer Rick's. It had been over two days at that point since Eddie, Chrissy, Dustin, and Max had been accounted for. Only Jason Carver had seen them within the last twenty-four hours.

"It's in the lake!" Dustin shouted victoriously, leading the group right to the shore of Lover's Lake. "This is confounding."

"When the Demogorgon attacked, it always left an opening. Maybe Vecna's the same way?" Nancy ventured, staring out at the expanse of dark water before them.

"Yeah, only one way to find out," Steve grumbled. Eddie was already on the move, back into the forest.

"C'mon," he told them, dragging Chrissy behind him by their joined hands. "Rick's got a motorboat."

He led them back to Reefer Rick's shack on the other side of the lake, revealing the boat in question beneath a protective tarp. Together, Eddie and Steve moved the boat to the still shallows of the lake. Robin wasted no time boarding, using both their heads as leverage as she stepped into the boat.

"Yeah, thanks," Steve grumbled at her, earning himself a tousle of his thick hair as Robin climbed into the boat. Eddie hopped in next, extending a hand to help first Nancy and then Chrissy into the boat. "Sure this thing isn't going to sink?"

"You wanna stay behind? Because me and Chris are a package deal of novices in this whole fighting monsters from alternate dimensions thing." Steve looked like he was going to argue, but Chrissy beat him to it.

"Please," was all she said, softly pleading. Steve Harrington fell just as quickly as Eddie had when Chrissy first turned those big, sweet eyes on him. Sighing, Steve ran a hand through his hair.

"We'll do what we can to even out the weight."

"It'll be better this way," Nancy was quick to agree, giving the younger kids on the shore an apologetic look. "You guys stay with Max, keep an eye out for trouble."

"You keep an eye out!" Dustin snapped. "It's my goddamn theory!"

"You heard Nance," Robin scolded him, giving her seat to Chrissy and moving toward the middle of the boat, sitting herself on the floor.

"Who put her in charge?!" Dustin continued to argue indignantly.

Eddie took the seat beside Chrissy. She didn't recognize her own shaking until he laid a hand on her shoulder. "We can still go back," he whispered to her, head bent low next to her ear. Chrissy gave a resolute shake of her own head.

"To Mordor it is, right? I need to see this through, even if I'm scared."

"Duly noted," Eddie whispered. "To Mordor. I would toast you, but, uh, no one brought any liquid courage on this terrifying expedition."

By that time, Dustin and Nancy's squabbling had ended and the five of them were off, the over-loaded motorboat sluggishly moving them toward the center of the lake.

"Bedtime at nine, kiddos!" Robin shouted back at the shore, earning herself three disgruntled looks and Dustin flipping her the bird. "Miss you already!"

Chrissy smiled uncertainly at Robin's flippant mood. Perhaps it was only false bravado from the other girl, or perhaps she truly was as unbothered as she seemed. Either way, her teasing soothed some of Chrissy's own anxiety as they traveled through the water.

They were halfway toward the middle of the lake when Steve called for a stop to Eddie and Robin's rowing. "Woah, woah, woah."

"Why are you stopping? Guys, talk to me!" Came Dustin's static-y voice through the walkie talkie radio.

"Uh, Dustin, your compass has gone from wonky to wonky with a capital 'aah!'," Robin relayed back to him. Chrissy wanted to look, too, but was worried her moving would capsize them all. Instead, she gripped the bench beneath her tightly, so that she felt the grain of the wood pressing into her fingers. She wasn't cold; Vecna wasn't close at hand. Not at the moment. But he had been there.

Tears began to stream down her face as a deep, hopeless dread settled over her shoulders like a heavy blanket. "This is where Patrick died." Could the others not feel it?

Apparently not, for they turned to her with eyes wide with surprise and sympathy alike. In response to the malfunctioning compass and Chrissy's tearful statement, Steve began removing his shoes and socks. "Steve, what are you doing?"

"Someone's gotta go down there and check it out," he replied plainly to Robin's question. "Unless one of you can top being a Hawkins High swim team co-captain and a certified lifeguard for three years, then it's gotta be me. No complaints, alright?" The boat rocked as he stood and removed his sweater.

"Hey, I'm not complaining." Eddie laid a hand on Chrissy's knee, giving her a squeeze as she swiped the tears from her cheeks. "I do not wanna go down there." He pulled a plastic bag from his inner jacket pocket, dumping out the packs of cigarettes he had there and wrapping the emptied bag around a flashlight for Steve. "Good luck."

"Thanks." After lighting up the cigarette, he offered it to Chrissy. She took it gingerly between her fingers, taking a small inhale as she set it between her lips. The nicotine was a slight balm to her jangled nerves. Not quite the same as the weed, but good enough for the time being. She took another inhale before giving it back to Eddie.

"Gross," Robin chided, reaching for the cigarette, but Eddie knocked her hand away. He ground it out on the bottom of the boat and carefully placed it back in the pack.

"Chris needs it," he snapped at her. "So you can deal with it." Steve had disappeared beneath the water by then. Chrissy watched the light of his flashlight fade away as he dived deeper into the lake.

"Where we at, Wheeler?" Robin asked, her voice still strained from the small tiff that had just transpired.

"Closing in on a minute." The shimmer of light cut across the water, drawing Chrissy's attention. But it glittered on top, not from beneath the dark, shadowy waters of Lover's Lake. Not underneath, but…

Steve came bursting and spluttering through the water before she could contemplate the light further. "I found it!"

"You found it?!"

"Yeah, yeah, I found it!" Steve floated in the water, catching his breath and smiling, while Robin radioed to the shore.

"Dustin, you are a goddamn Einstein, Steve found the gate!"

"It's pretty wild," Steve continued, hauling himself onto the edge of the boat. "It's more of a snack-sized gate than a mama gate, but still. It's pretty damn big." He gave another triumphant smile before suddenly being swallowed by the water, eliciting cries from all those still in the boat. Steve reappeared in the next moment, looking pale and confused, but offering no explanation. Not that he had time; he was swiftly pulled under again by some unseen force.

"Steve!" Nancy yelled, the boat nearly tipping with the force of whatever pulled Steve under.

Robin was quick to join in calling futilely for their swimmer, while Eddie gave an emphatic, "What the hell was that, man?!"

"You know what it is!" Chrissy snapped, grabbing tight to Eddie's arm. The panic had leeched all the color from his face, the night having painted his dark hair and eyes black.

"Can you feel him?" He asked. When Chrissy nodded, his eyes somehow widened farther. "Jesus fuck, okay. Hey, Wheeler, what the hell? You're not going down there!"

Nancy was already poised to dive, though. "Just stay here, I'll be back!" Both Robin and Eddie clutched futilely at empty air. Nancy was gone before either could find purchase.

"No, no, no, no, no, what are you doing? She said wait," Eddie chastised Robin. She was already sitting on the edge, though, ready to go into the water herself.

"Yeah, I heard her." That was the only reply Robin gave before she, too, fell over the edge of the boat and into the water.

"Goddammit!" Eddie cursed, standing and kicking the wall of the boat. Chrissy stood, too, edging toward the edge of the boat.

"Are you ready, then?" She asked him, raising an eyebrow at his antics.

"What? No. Chrissy, no. Fuck no. You're not going down there to the snack-sized gate. You're going back to the shore."

"I'm going to the shore?" She questioned, bristling. With a sharp jerk of the chin, she drew his attention to the lights bouncing all around the lake. It was obvious the police were back. "You want me to go to the shore?"

"Goddammit," Eddie swore again, clenching and unclenching both his hands and jaw alike. "Ideally, Chris, I would like us both very fucking far away from here."

"Well, that's not an option right now. We're a package deal, right?" Chrissy implored, looking up at him with those pleading eyes again. She held her hand out and Eddie took it immediately.

"Yeah, yeah, a package deal." He sounded resigned, rubbing his free hand hard over his face. "Son of a bitch. This is so stupid. Stupid, stupid, stupid."

"Are you done? Yeah? Okay, let's go."

With a final, deep breath, they jumped into Lover's Lake at the same time, their hands still clasped together.

Notes: