"So…it's like a play?"

"Like a play? No. No, it's—"

"Sorry, it—I just mean, it sounds like a play. Like improv!"

"Okay, first of all, it's better than a play, and secondly—you—you gotta stop with the apologizing, man."

The barest hint of sunlight was coming in through the library window. The sky was turning that faded, gray-blue out beyond the parking lot and past the trees, the color it usually was an hour or two before Eddie knew he had to be at school. Today, he was already there, which was surely a sign of the apocalypse in and of itself. He and the leader of the pep brigade had been wandering around the empty building since 4 AM, with no sign of the Upside Down leaking out of the basement yet. As far as they knew, the rest of the group still slept fitfully in the gym. They had this adolescent torture chamber to themselves.

"Sorry." Chrissy bit her lip, fighting a smile when he paused, tilted his head at her in a come on gesture, and raised his hands. "I'm sor—"

"Chrissy." He pointed sharply, cutting her off before she apologized for apologizing—for apologizing.

After listening to Uptown Girl in the hallway for a while longer, and a bit more strolling, Eddie and Chrissy had settled into chairs at a study table in the library. Her boom box was on one end of the table, quietly playing that same tune, and Eddie coped with this by finally, finally smoking. The moment the cigarette hit his lips, the moment he sucked in a cloud of pure, loving cancer, everything was easier to take. That might have been more about the comfort of the taste, the smell, maybe a little placebo in the works. He didn't care. His entire body had been begging for it from the moment the girl across from him had gone into a trance several feet above Wayne's stained carpet.

Talking to her suddenly seemed that much simpler. It wasn't as if it had been hard before—actually, ever since the deal in the woods, conversing with Hawkins' crown princess had been suspiciously tolerable. But now he realized he had been tense during some of those chats. Sure, that stiffness had also come from the fear he'd been feeling for two straight days, but he was a guy. Guys get tense, talking to girls.

And he had been talking to her. She lived across the tracks. She danced and dined with the height of suburban social class. She probably ordered strawberry milkshakes every weekend of her life. Wore a dress to every church event, cleaned her shoes nightly, bought whatever caught her eye at Star Court just for the serotonin of it. No end of money, no limits to her freedom. Everyone at school loved her, every girl on the squad wanted to be her, and the only reason she was even breathing the same acrid air as Eddie was because of Vecna.

To his surprise, it turned out he'd been very tense.

But now there was tobacco. So it was okay.

Chrissy didn't seem to mind when he began smoking. He wasn't going to do it. He was going to resist, and be there if she needed to talk, head clear, but an hour passed and his hands weren't doing enough. And the building was too quiet. And there were monsters living in a dusty version of Hell downstairs, and by the time they were in the library he couldn't take it anymore. He was only human. Chrissy had terrible music to get her through the waves upon waves of total terror, but Uptown Girl was not curing anything for him. So out came the Camels again; out came the lighter. Chrissy watched him do it, made no comment, no expression, and they had carried on as if it were normal. For all he knew, the weekly jock parties might have been full of his product and she was used to it from her friends. They were pretty consistent customers.

Several puffs in, she had rested her chin on her hands on the tabletop and asked him about his shirt. Who made it? He made it? Where did he go to have it done? Why choose that logo? What exactly did his club do, anyway?

He knew she was asking to be polite. Or asking because she was still scared out of her skull and needed to keep talking. Take her mind off it. But to be equally polite—she did ask—he dove in. Before he knew it, Eddie was explaining Dungeons and Dragons in kindergarten terms. It wasn't that he thought she was stupid—it was just that, judging by his own experiences in the past, people from her neck of the woods had to be brought up from the very bottom of the mountain of information. Slowly. With basic words.

"It's improv in the best way. It's fantasy—you make the rules."

"But…are there…points, or…? I mean—how do you win?"

Eddie tapped his lighter against the table. "Depends on the campaign." He held up a hand, lazy. "Sorry—the story. Maybe...you're hunting for treasure, or—fighting a monster. You find the treasure, you win, you beat the monster—" he let the hand flap around, liking how it felt to flop his wrist, "—et cetera. No points."

Chrissy nodded, eyebrows pinched. "But—you said there were dice."

"Yeah."

"And math."

"Little bit."

"So—how is there not points?"

"No, there's points, but it's not—doesn't work like that, it's—" Eddie pursed his lips. He leaned forward against the table. "It's more about roleplay, it's strategy. Beating the odds. There are elves, you know, dwarves, dragons. Long journeys, you play off each other. It's anything you want. Dice, points…it just helps you keep track."

She was staring at him, looking how he probably looked during every one of the classes held in this school for years. Vague. Glassy. Eddie was beginning to get that feeling he used to get, back when his hair was buzzed and his peers made him feel like he was growing scales or something. Like he was turning into a lizard. Like he was licking his own eyeball. He took a final hit, leaning back in his seat until the front legs tilted off the ground.

"Uh, forget it." Eddie walked to the window, shoving it open just enough to reach out and put the cigarette out against the bricks. He shut it with a snap, flopping back into his seat. "Y'know. It's just a game." He shrugged, palms splayed in the air, giving her a tight smile.

Chrissy nodded, twiddling the drawstring of Jason's hoodie between thumb and forefinger. There was something odd in her face, now, something that took his eyeball-licking twinge away and replaced it with something else. Something that felt too much like regret. Chrissy looked…put out. She seemed disappointed, no, abashed. Like she was feeling silly.

Then she took a breath, lifting her head to glance at him a little more fully. "When I was—do you…remember Mr. Dobbs' class last year?"

Eddie blinked, blowing the last of the smoke out with slightly parted lips, nodding. There was a milky memory in there somewhere. Had he showed up in that class? Had he been asleep? High? Milky. It was somewhere. He remembered Dobbs' metallic, colorless tone talking about books and authors that deserved a better representative. And the bow tie. It was green.

"He gave us The Hobbit in September?"

That he recognized. Eddie nodded again. No, he didn't remember being assigned the book to read, but he had read the book, so the lie wasn't exactly solid.

Chrissy's mouth was doing a funny dance as she spoke. She was smiling, but it was tiny, like she wasn't sure of it. "I aced that class."

Eddie let his eyebrows travel heavenward. "So congratulations are in order." He dipped his head and gave her a curly smile of his own, encouraging her mouth to try harder.

"Because I went home, and I finished it in a day," Chrissy went on, ignoring his teasing, speeding up, "and then I went to the library and I checked out all of them. All of the other books. And I was done in a week."

Billy Joel continued softly in the background. Eddie could barely hear him anymore. If Chrissy heard, that was all that mattered, and how could he pay attention to anything else when the captain of the cheerleading squad was describing herself enjoying, nay, devouring fantasy's favorite series? He wondered if she was telling the truth. He couldn't picture it.

"You—Chrissy Cunningham—read the entire Lord of the Rings trilogy?"

She nodded. "They were really good."

"And The Hobbit?"

"In a day."

"Bull."

"I did!"

"You read all of them?" Eddie squinted at her, fighting back what truly did seem like a grin pushing at his chest. He stood up, restless, and stepped around to grip the back of his chair.

"I promise." Chrissy mimed crossing her heart. It was almost cute. "I really liked it; I swear."

Eddie watched her, trying to play lie-detector. It didn't add up. He tried to imagine her curled up in a chair somewhere, or stomach-down on a bed, eagerly flipping the pages of The Return of the King. It didn't work. With those manicured nails? With that perfect posture? With her matte lipstick and her penchant for full schedules stuffed with Carver and his drones? Couldn't be.

Then she said, "It…sounds kind of like that."

"What does?"

"Your club. It sounds like Lord of the Rings."

Eddie let the grin loose. It just came out. So she was getting it! She understood D&D. Just a little. Just a speck of it. She was grinning back, now, looking sort of confused at his expression, but pleased with herself nonetheless.

"You've been holding out on me, Chrissy." She started chortling, and he kept going, testing to see how much harder she'd laugh. "Are you a closet fantasy nerd? Tell me the truth. Come on, you have a cape at home, don't you? Next to the pom-poms? Don't be shy—"

"No, no," Chrissy waved her hands, making the safe motion umpires did at baseball games, shoulders shaking. "No, just the books! Really!"

He listened to her laughter fade, twisting the rings on his left hand. The petite little prom queen was a Lord of the Rings fan. Call the Hawkins Post. He must have been staring. Everything seemed to weigh less with the tobacco in his system. Chrissy stared back, just for a second, still smiling. Then she seemed anxious to break the silence.

"So—it's not a cult."

Eddie gave her a look. "Right. Because you can see me dragging fluffy little Henderson out to Lover's Lake to sacrifice a virgin every other night?"

She seemed at a loss for words then, eyes scrunching up as she searched for a response.

"That's only on weekends, Chrissy."

"Okay, I—" She practically choked on a laugh, holding up both hands. "I'm sorry. It's just—I mean, why would you call it Hellfire?"

He snorted, eyes drifting to his rings and back to her. "Hey, if the town's gonna call us freaks, we might as well lean into it. Easier than fighting back, right?"

"But…" She furrowed her brow. "You do fight back. I've seen you—all the time. At lunch, you're always—"

"Yeah, well, to some people, real life's not exactly the fairest place to be." Eddie rocked the chair from one side to the other, giving the window and the sunrise a sideways glance. For some reason, the way she was watching him was making some of that Camel bliss drizzle out of his head. "Shoot me for reminding the masses."

Her mouth opened and closed, and she looked at her hands for a second. He cursed inwardly. He'd been too biting.

Eddie bent down a bit, catching her eye. "Don't say I'm sorry." Gave her a quick smile.

She pursed her lips to the side, blinking up at him. Bambi himself would be jealous of those eyes.

"You should check out a session sometime." Eddie folded his arms, straightening up. "See how harmless it is."

"You just…play pretend?" Chrissy shoved a bit of her bangs out of the way. "With dice? That's it?"

Mentally, he sent a deep, flowery apology to every campaign he'd ever run. Then he bit the bullet and said, "That's it."

She nodded slowly, tugging her '86 necklace out of the hoodie and moving the chain so that the clasp wouldn't show. Uptown Girl crooned and the sunlight got a little brighter through the window. Eddie slid his lighter and package of cigarettes into his pocket, sidling around the chairs and shelves to her side.

"You've read Tolkien."

"Yes."

"All of it."

"Yes!"

"Okay!" He lifted his hands. Eddie came to stand beside her, back against the table, arms still crossed. "Sorry, I'm just drinking it in here. Y'know," he added, hiking himself up to sit on the tabletop, "you're not what I thought you'd be either, Chrissy."

She narrowed her eyes, slow on the uptake. "Because I liked The Hobbit?"

"Uh huh." He nodded, lids hooded, looking down at her. "I mean, I thought cheerleaders were supposed to be these…cold, superficial vixens—"

She was scoffing, but it sounded like an onramp to a laugh.

"—obsessed with hair products and…the perfect boyfriend." He flicked at his own hair, smirking. Then he leaned back, face straightening out. "Gotta say, you're reshaping the image."

It took her a moment to reply. She was softly tapping her thumb to the beat of the boom box, and when she spoke, it was just as quiet. "You're not…that far off."

Eddie's head reared. "Uh, yes. I am. Look at you, you're living proof." He chortled, trying to bring back her smile. Didn't work.

"No, I—" Chrissy inhaled slowly. "I do care about those things. The right look. The…perfect life." She tapped the aglet on her hoodie's drawstring against the table now, thumb abandoned. Faster and faster. "I mean, I did. Before…"

Before Vecna. Eddie glanced at the door, as though he might see the dark wizard staring back through the rectangular window. The sun coming in beside them made it feel impossible, but they'd seen enough to feel the danger. Broad daylight didn't dispel psychopaths. He wanted another smoke. He wanted to be able to wave his hand and calm Chrissy down, change the subject quick, make things slim and airy again. But whatever she was getting at seemed to have her tight in its grasp. She was all serious now, and he tried to be all ears in return.

"I don't know. Now it just seems so…stupid." She let out her breath, sharp and hard. "With everything going on."

Her voice died out, and they sunk back into an Uptown Girl fog. Eddie drummed a fingernail on the table, in time with her leg, which was bouncing, and they watched the light climb higher out the window. Cars meandered past the school in the distance; Hawkins was starting to wake up. Another beautiful spring day trying to hide the realm of monsters that kept coming in to feed. To make a hard life even harder. Weirder. He thought about reaching back in for the Camels.

Chrissy interrupted his hand halfway to his pocket. "And I'm not obsessed with Jason."

She glanced at him out of the corner of her eye. He was already looking back, giving her the most skeptical stare he could possibly conjure.

She turned to face him full-on. "I'm not! He's—he's great, and I-I care, yeah, but—stop." Chrissy let her hand slap to the table a bit, exasperated.

"What?" Eddie blinked quickly, as if coming out of water. The innocent act.

"Stop it!"

"What?"

"If you got to know him," Chrissy began, "You'll see, you're wrong about him too—"

"No—"

"Eddie—"

"Nope—"

"He's a really good guy, and—I guess you guys don't get along, I know, but—he's just—"

"Chrissy," Eddie said, voice a little louder, a little firmer, steely and grinning down at her. He pressed his hands to his chest. "Now—dear old Uncle Wayne taught me to mind my manners around a lady, so. I'm not gonna call him what he is. Not here." He leaned closer. "But he is."

Chrissy was absolutely fighting a smile. Fighting it with every inch of her being. He got the feeling it wasn't on her because she agreed, but because of the way he was saying it. He still considered that a victory. Her eyes twinkled with the effort. "I'm just saying. He might surprise you."

"No, he does." Eddie lit another cigarette and popped it into his mouth, speaking around it. "Every time he remembers the way to the bathroom. Just…shocked."

"Eddie."

"I don't know how he does it."

"Please." Chrissy rolled her eyes. "Stop."

He kept his smile on her, playful, shoving the lighter back in his pocket. If Jason wasn't here to mock, wasn't here to rile up, his girlfriend could at least pass on the message when this conundrum was over. He had to scratch that itch somehow. Nothing like a daily routine. Somewhere in that milkiness was the thought that he probably shouldn't be insulting Chrissy's fella while her life was in danger. That it was in poor taste. That it wasn't going to earn him any glittery feelings of camaraderie—she clearly wasn't in the business of slandering Carver when his back was turned. That was admirable—and also didn't fit the cheerleader motif he'd carefully constructed. Surely these witches talked trash about everyone, whether the victim gave them a class ring or not.

But Chrissy wasn't doing that. Chrissy really wasn't like that. In the pushed-to-the-back-of-the-closet part of his mind, he found he wasn't surprised. Had some portion of him still, for ages, held onto the idea that she was nicer? That she was better? He almost hated that he'd expected it. He almost hated that those subconscious closet expectations had actually been met. But she was begrudgingly smiling back, looking relaxed, and he couldn't drag up any resentment if he tried.

"It's part of the code."

"Code?" Chrissy asked. She rested her head in a hand, elbow digging into the table.

"My own personal Munson Doctrine," he explained. "Every rich jock's a…" he flapped a hand, chin tilted down, eyebrows raised, mind yer manners, kid, "…that. Every cute little cheerleader could kill you. Mean and scary. Y'know, the works."

Chrissy tipped her head back and chuckled. "Oho-kay."

"Hey, it's been tried and tested, man." Eddie pointed at her, blowing out a bit of smoke and careful to redirect it. "I'm not just making this stuff up as I go. It's airtight. Generations old."

"But—it's not." Chrissy put her arm down and sat up straighter, meeting his eyes. "You just said—I'm not what you thought I'd be, right?"

He dipped his head again, clicking his tongue. "I sure did."

"And you're not what I thought you'd be like." Chrissy almost smirked at him. She gave him the up-and-down, sideways look those debate team kids gave one another across the auditorium, having just won an argument. "You're…sweet. And funny, and definitely not hiding bodies in the woods—"

"Well, it's not Saturday yet."

"—so—it's not airtight." She settled back in her chair, raising her eyebrows back at him. Waiting.

Eddie plucked the cigarette out, exhaling slowly, taking in her expression. Straight A's, carried herself like royalty. Or she did before the Upside Down. It was a wonder she was wasting that clipped, confident tone on crowing for basketball-toting sweat bags. She could've headed the debate team. She wasn't as mousy as she seemed, once she was comfortable. Just more to learn. Eddie found this lesson wasn't one he was having trouble paying attention to.

"You know, uh," Eddie gestured slightly with a hand, a string of smoke following the cigarette as it moved, "I'm starting to think if high school worked differently, you and me might've…"

Chrissy's mighty look toppled away, replaced by something much softer. "What?"

Eddie paused, mid-gesture, grinning. "…We might've been friends. Crazy, I know—" He spread his fingers, arms open and up.

She was quiet, then, glancing at her knees, the cigarette, the table. She didn't respond, but though her head ducked away from him, he could see she was grinning too.

(Author's Note: Again, I can see that I have readers, but it sucks when I know people read my work and they neglect to tell me what they think. It's much more tangible, having an audience, when they comment. I'm so creatively tired these days and look forward to the encouragement to keep writing. Please comment if you read it and enjoy it. I'm shamelessly begging. Thanks! -Doverstar)