Love Walks In - Van Halen
"You stumble, gasping, out of the mists and into a clearing free from the choking mists of Ravenloft."
Beck dropped her head onto the table with a loud thud and both Jeff and Todd heaved sighs of relief. This session was worse than usual since the mother fucking MIST had her making death saving throws until they found the clearing.
After healing up, the adventuring party was introduced to the Vistani people and told their arrival had been foretold by Madame Ava, the leader. She offered them a tarot reading and when they agreed they were then treated to Eddie acting as an old mystic fortune teller. The reading revealed the location of several items and the vampire lord Strahd himself.
"So the Tome of Strahd is in the Burgomeister's attic? That's the closest of the items right?" Beck asked.
"Yeah but the Sunsword is more useful," Gareth objected.
"Not if we don't know why he's targeting Ireena. We're supposed to be protecting her," Beck returned.
"We have to go through Barovia again anyway. Especially if this mist keeps wiping out our healing potions," Jeff pointed out. "We might as well go to the attic and get the tome."
They made their way back to Barovia through more of the damned mist and into the attic of the townmaster. Gareth, as their human ranger, crit on investigation and they found the tome with everyone succeeding their rolls to understand what it said.
Eyes nearly glittering, Eddie crouched in his DM throne and propped his elebows on his knees so he could tell the story of the contents. "On reading, you come, unbelievably, across a love story."
Todd threw a hand up in annoyance so Beck kicked him, earning a glare.
"Strahd had once loved a young woman. As they grew up, the two grew close despite the distance in age between them. Until…"
He leaned forward, balancing his weight on his fingertips.
"His younger brother returned from training in the ranks of the king. Tatyana, now a woman, fell in love with this younger brother. Driven by rage and grief at the betrayal and rejection, Strahd made a pact with the evil of Ravenloft to live forever."
Gareth, their key note taker for the campaign scribbled furiously as Eddie's voice dropped.
"Strahd then killed his brother for stealing his life's love from him. What he did not expect, what he could never see coming, was that Tatyana would rather leave their very plane of existence than be without his brother, her own love."
Eddie met Beck's eyes, holding her in his intense gaze as he delivered this last line. Her skin heated with surprise and pleasure as he snapped his gaze back to the rest of the party.
"And so she killed herself, leaving him alone, now an ageless vampire."
"And with that vampire love story reveal, I've got to get home before my parents kill me," said Todd. It was surprisingly late so they all scrambled to pack up and head home.
As Beck and Eddie trudged outside with his crate of D&D supplies, he could not help but smile at the light snowfall that had dusted the van and everything in sight while they had played.
"Didn't expect you to be such a romantic," Beck said as she started up the van and carefully navigated out of the parking lot.
He ran both his hands through his hair. "Haven't had a lot of use for it," he said, eyes holding her again. "Until now..."
She pulled to a stop at a red light and rested her hand against the side of his face, again rubbing her thumb across his check and jawline and feeling him lean into her palm.
"I could spend a lifetime learning who you are," she murmured.
She dropped her hand to continue driving as the light turned green and Eddie focused on not showing that his heart was beating so hard and so fast that he felt lightheaded from it.
December 20th arrived and Beck was so ready. It was just before winter break, Eddie would be eighteen, and she wanted nothing more than for it to be the best day for him.
But he wasn't there.
For someone who hated school, this seemed like something that would not draw notice, but Eddie was always at school. Far too social to just be alone all day, he would rather come to school than not and had an impressive attendance record. So where the hell was he?
At lunch, his absence was as painfully obvious as a tooth knocked out of a mouth and Beck joined up with the D&D table in his absence.
"You guys know where he is?" she asked.
Jeff and Gareth exchanged a glance and she crossed her arms, daring them to lie to her.
"It's…" Jeff started, glancing to Gareth for approval.
"You know about his dad?" Gareth took over.
"Yeah? Like I know where he is and why if that's what you're asking."
"So every year, on Eddie's birthday, his dad calls him. They're not… fun calls."
Beck ran her hands down her face. Of course.
"How do you know this?" she asked.
"Last year his birthday was on a Friday. He missed D&D and we all genuinely thought he was dead so we found him at the trailer."
Well this was going to be fun.
"Can one of you drive me out there after school?" she asked and Jeff eagerly agreed. They were as worried about him as she was. "And I'm going to need your help for something else as well…"
Beck jumped out of Jeff's car and jogged around to the back of Eddie's trailer. They had seen him sitting back there in a lawn chair in the snow when they had pulled up; the weed reek hit her when she was still a good distance away.
He was slouched down, eyes red and glassy, staring into the middle distance while a joint burned down between his fingers. When she took the burning nub from him, his hands were icy and he started as if he had no idea she was even there.
"Missed you today," she said, not really sure what mood she was going to get out of him.
"They told you?" he croaked before breaking into a hacking cough.
"Yeah, they did," she said pounding on his back till he stopped coughing. "I assume it didn't go well?"
"Nothing like being told you're a failure by a man in prison," he rasped.
"I'm sorry," she said. "How long have you been out here?" Translation: how far gone are you?
"Since eleven, I think."
"That explains why you feel like an ice mummy," she said, standing and trying to drag him to his feet.
"Where are we going?"
"Inside. You probably haven't eaten today and I'm guessing you'll want to."
He followed her in, slower and more subdued than usual. She forced him to sit on the couch, piling blankets around him and pointing a space heater at him. He leaned back and watched her, seeming to wake up some as she boiled water and fished out a box of mac 'n cheese.
About seven minutes later it was cooked and about four minutes later he had inhaled every last bit of it. The pasta had kicked off the snacking side of high and Eddie unburrowed from the couch to start on a bag of chips.
"Feeling better?" Beck asked when he eventually slowed down.
"Very definitely," he said, now seeming more content and aware of her presence.
"Perfect. Let's get you in bed."
She pushed him in the right direction before bundling up the smoke-stinking blankets he had been wrapped up in and starting a load of laundry. When she joined him in his room, Eddie was standing in the middle of the room looking sleepy and lost.
"Come on. You need sleep and you're still way too cold," she said with a laugh, helping him into the bed.
"Alone?" he asked with a heart melting pout.
"Eddie, you smell like death."
"Stay here," he said, pushing back up to his feet.
And before her very eyes he started to completely unselfconsciously strip down, pulling his jacket and shirt off, then stepping out of his jeans, tripping a bit. Beck was both grateful and slightly disappointed that he stopped at his boxers and couldn't help but take in his muscled legs as he fished around his floor for something else to wear.
He pulled on flannel pajama pants and a white t-shirt before falling back into the bed heavily. His doe eyes were even wider with his blown out pupils and Beck couldn't resist his pleading looks so she lay down beside him, pulling the comforter and quilt over them. He immediately wrapped himself tightly around her, spooning her and snuggling his chilly face into the crook of her neck.
Everything, from his stumbling strip down to his unabashed snuggling, was so vulnerable and so incredibly precious that she knew in a strike of clarity that she was falling completely in love with him.
He was asleep quickly but rather than loosening his grip, he curled tighter around her, tucking them both up into almost a fetal position. Beck listened to the soothing rise and fall of his breathing and intertwined her legs with his, allowing herself to drift off.
The buzzer on the washing machine woke her up with a start and she disentangled herself from Eddie with some barely awake protestations from him. She was throwing the blankets into the dryer when Eddie's uncle left his room, clearly ready to go to work. Beck remembered he did a night shift at the factory and gave him a small smile before turning on the dryer.
"He okay?" Wayne asked.
"He's asleep," she answered, trying to hide how nervous he made her with his silences.
Wayne nodded. "Every year I tell him not to take the damn call," he huffed, running a hand over his stubbly grey hair. "At least someone was here for him this year."
She wasn't sure what to say to that so she waited until he looked back up from the floor.
"You need a ride home?"
"That would be great actually," she said. "Hold on!"
She darted back into Eddie's room and scribbled a note that she placed conspicuously under his watch. Grabbing her things, she followed Wayne out of the trailer, leaving Eddie to sleep and sober up inside.
When he woke up to his godforsaken alarm clock, Eddie's head was foggy and his throat hurt. Casting back, he remembered the call with his dad and then going outside to smoke. Then there was a gaping void before he recalled Beck cooking and him eating and then...
He rolled over and yelled into his pillow as he remembered with crushing embarrassment being so high he just stripped down in front of Beck while she probably watched him stumble around.
The snooze on his alarm went off and he knocked the alarm clock to the floor, sending his watch and a note clattering down as well. He picked it up the paper and finally read it on the second try.
I'm running D&D tomorrow. You already agreed so be at school!
The FUCK?! He never agreed to anything like this so he must have been way more baked than he realized. He glanced at the clock and knew that he badly needed a shower. Too late for first period but he could make it for second. He scrambled out of bed and dashed down the hall.
As Eddie was putting on shoes, Uncle Wayne returned from work.
"You're late," his uncle chided.
"Working on it!" Then Eddie realized Wayne would have been there when Beck left. "Do you know how Beck got home? Is my van here?!"
"I drove her." Wayne held his nephew's gaze for what felt like an eternity. "She's a good one."
Eddie knew he was scarlet as he dashed out to the van. His uncle's sideways approval meant a lot more than he would admit out loud.
"If you ask me again, the drama club is going to sing happy birthday to you at lunch," Beck said, barely suppressing a smile at the horrified look on his face.
Eddie had found her between classes and seemed deeply unsettled by the idea he had agreed to give up a D&D session. And even more unsettled that she wasn't telling him what the plan was which she loved because winding him up was way too fun.
He threw his hands up in defeat. "Right for the jugular I see," he said. "Barbarian indeed."
Beck caught his collar and pulled his lips to hers. "See you after school. And don't grill the guys about it at lunch because I'll cut every last one of you if they spill."
The wickedness in her grin before she headed off to class was so smoking hot Eddie knew that memory would be living in his head for a good while.
The day drug on but finally the dismissal bell rang and he bolted for the auditorium backstage. The student production of Guys and Dolls would be showing over the three days before winter break so backstage was flooded with students changing, wiping off makeup, and grabbing their stuff to leave.
He found Beck packing up her kit and hovered over her as she pretended she had no idea he was there.
"Oh come on!" he finally exclaimed.
"Alright," she said laughing as she stashed the stage makeup away. "Let's find everyone else."
"What do you mean find? You said–"
"I said I was running the session. Did not say I was DMing. Come on."
He followed on her heels back out to his van where his adventuring party waited. Beck took the keys from him as the other guys piled into the back and Eddie took the passenger seat.
"Close your eyes," she said as she pulled out the bandana he had given her all those months ago.
"If you wanted to tie me up, you could have just asked," he teased.
He couldn't see her but he felt her breath on his cheek as she whispered into his ear, "When I want something, you will know without a doubt."
Beck was flooded with satisfaction when saw that he clenched both fists clench and bit his lip in response.
And then they drove for what seemed like maybe a small eternity, which he was more than a little convinced was to throw off his internal compass of where they could be. They eventually parked and he was led inside.
When the blindfold was whipped off, he was standing in a bowling alley with his entire D&D party grinning at him in front of a handmade sign that said 'Happy Birthday' and covered in art of his guitar, dice, and dragons. Beck watched him take it in before Eddie pulled her into a bear hug and planted a kiss on her head.
"Well you have no idea what you've signed up for," he said. "I happen to be not only a dungeon master but a master of bowling."
And despite the fact that vast majority of his bragging was comedic bravado, he was, in fact, seriously good at bowling, to the point that after the first game everyone started trying to throw him off when he would bowl. When the end of the third game devolved into a small wrestling match, they left before they were told to leave.
But Beck wasn't heading back after they all piled back into the van. Instead they drove to Gareth's house out on Lover's Lake and built a bonfire down by the water. Beck only pulled mom tone with them when they were fucking around by the fire like they didn't care if they fell in it and suggested ghost stories. And true to what she expected, Eddie was the master of a dramatic fireside story though Jeff gave him a good run for his money with the story of a local murderer who carved the eyes out of his victim.
Eventually Gareth's parents made it clear it was time to push off so Beck drove everyone back to their cars before taking herself and Eddie back to the library so she could walk home. Alone, they drove in content silence but Eddie kept his eyes on her the entire drive and the look he was giving her made her want him more intensely than ever. She threw the van into park and he finally broke the silence they had been keeping.
"What did I ever do to deserve you?" he breathed.
She really didn't have an answer for him because she hadn't really seen herself as a gift to anyone. He was the one who had protected her on her very first day in Hawkins. He was the one who had been so unguarded and had shared his interests with her.
"Pissed off a witch, I imagine," she said, but her breathy tone betrayed her attempt at sarcasm. She cleared her throat. "See you after New Year's?"
Between the play and her trip with her mom back up to Detroit for Christmas, that was the soonest they would be back together. He nodded and they kissed before she left. As he moved to the driver seat his heart twisted with realization.
Fuck… he was completely in love with her…