Separate Ways (Worlds Apart) - Journey
"Well Beck?" Eddie sneered, thudding against the locker next to hers. "Do you have 'pep'?"
"I'm no happier about this than you are," she sighed. "Think of it this way: this is your last ever pep rally.."
He huffed out a breath that made his bangs fly around as Jeff and Gareth joined them, looking equally annoyed.
Beck poked each of them teasingly in the center of their chests and said,"Adventuring party beats sportball team anyway."
It was the last session of their campaign that night and they had all worn their Hellfire shirts for the occasion, and with the crew all there Eddie sulkily shoved off the lockers and draped an arm around Beck's shoulders protectively. He was both showy and possessive any time they were in crowds of people and this tendency had grown on her. They shoved through the bleachers, unseating a few sophomores who had tried to hold down the upper left corner and Gareth waved down Todd when they found him.
Beck was reviewing flash cards for French, which was the only class she had lower than a B in right now, and blocking out the band noise and cheering until Jason fucking Carver took the mic.
"First off, I'd like to thank each and every one of you," he said. "Without your support we wouldn't be here."
"Can I withdraw mine retroactively?" Beck grumbled, not looking up. The other guys stifled laughter and the students around them shot them annoyed looks.
"I think I can speak for all of us when I say it's been a tough year for Hawkins," Jason continued and an ominous silence settled on the student body.
That got Beck's attention and she finally looked up. She listened with disbelief as the prick continued down this line, not letting up as he talked about how much loss a community could take and how they all needed something to believe in.
"So last night, when we were down by ten points at half to Christian Academy, I looked at my team and I said, 'Think of Jack. Think of Melissa. Think of Heather. Think of Billy.'"
Eddie heard Beck suck in breath and saw her crumpling the index cards in her hands at the mention of Max's stepbrother.
"Think of our heroic police chief, Jim Hopper. Think of each and every one of our friends who perished in that fire. What did they die for? For us to lose to some crap school?"
"Are you fucking serious?!" Beck exclaimed. She hadn't meant to say anything but it felt like her blood was literally boiling she was so enraged. This asshole was capitalizing on grief and loss and pain to rally people for a fucking game. He was dropping the names of people he didn't know or care about like it was absolutely nothing.
The auditorium shifted, looking for who had said that while the kids around her stared straight at her. Always the easy to locate one in a crowd, Beck wished she could fucking die as more and more eyes locked on her, including Jason who seemed to think he could set her on fire if he stared hard enough. But she also saw Max mouth 'thank you' to her, and that was certainly some comfort.
"Beck!" Mrs. O'Donnell hissed at her from beside the bleachers. "Detention after school!"
She blushed harder if at all possible and this seemed to placate the basketball captain.
He continued, "No! For us to return home with our heads hung low in defeat? No! Let's win this game! Let's win this game for them! And that's exactly what we did!"
The three quarters of the auditorium cheered and Eddie pulled Beck tightly to him, rubbing her back as she tried not to cry with the pure hatred she felt for Jason in that moment. Gareth caught her hand and told her to squeeze it which helped as she bore down in his hand until the moisture left her eyes. There was more nonsense about winning the championship trophy but Beck blocked it out, focusing hard on the sound of Eddie's heartbeat above everything else.
After the other students had filed out of the the auditorium and Beck was breathing steadily again, Hellfire finally followed. They had hung back protectively after noticing the disgusted looks and obscenities that were being aimed at Beck. Sarah had waited for them, giving Gareth a peck before wrapping Beck in a bone crushing hug. She was telling Beck that people around her had also agreed with her outburst when Beck saw the basketball team had started leaving the locker room and she stiffened when Jason spotted her.
"Hey!" Jason called, storming over to them.
Beck moved around Sarah to push her face into his and Jason took two very wise steps backward from her. "You're in two classes with me. You know my fucking name and it isn't Hey."
"Well what the hell was that, Beck?" he said, spitting her name like a cat.
"That was me calling your bullshit, Carver. I'm surprised you didn't cum from how hard you were talking about those tragic deaths."
His eyes took on an unhinged quality as he pointed into her face. "Listen you fucking freak of nature -"
Eddie had always tried to let Beck fight her own battles without interference from him but that was his limit. It was one thing when Jason and others called him a freak because they had nothing better to say but that had been pointed. That had been a dig at something personal and something she had always been tormented for so Eddie acted without thinking.
Beck had never seen Eddie move as quickly as he did in that moment. He stepped around her, grabbed Jason's wrist, and shoved it back into his chest, pushing the shorter boy back a few steps as well. Eddie was not heavily muscled but he was more than half a head taller than Jason and he clenched his fists at hip height, rings on full display.
Some other basketball players were joining Jason, backing him and squaring off, so the Hellfire club plus Sarah also circled up. Somehow Beck was now behind Todd and Eddie but they carried the most threat so she let it slide. He hands were cold and clammy at the thought of one of the sons of bitches laying a hand on her. She thought she had escaped this horrible feeling of inevitably losing to a bully but she resolved to claw their eyes out of their heads if they touched Eddie.
"All of you get to class!"
The Hellfire Club saw Ms. Kelley rushing toward them from the gym which forced the basketball players to expose their backs as they had to turn around to face her.
Jason's cough syrup smile was back on as he said, "Of course, Ms. Kelley! Just having a chat with our biggest fans."
"If I see any of you in any sort of altercation, you will be in my office," she snapped, not buying his shit.
"Of course," Jason said. "Whatever you say." And he moved past the Hellfire Club, his teammates following behind him.
Beck started breathing again once the group of basketball players were out of sight.
Ms. Kelley turned to the Hellfire group, obviously annoyed, "You have to keep your cool. Don't let them stir you up into doing something stupid so they blame you. Now go to class."
Eddie opened his locker and something other than the usual mess of guitar picks or loose paper or dice fell out, fanning across his shoes. It was a copy of Newsweek with a post-it stuck to an article midway through. When he flipped to the title, he spun around, looking for which of these smirking assholes had put this in his locker. There were several knots of kids laughing at him but no one seemed to stand out and it couldn't have been all ten of them.
He glanced back down at the headline: "Kids: The Deadliest Game?" It was an article he had heard about already, one that was bent on portraying D&D as Satanic and corrupting.
Eddie started to tear out the article and then stopped. No, he thought, he would do everyone one better. He smoothed out the page, rolled the magazine up, and shoved it into his back pocket as he made his way toward the cafeteria.
Jeff, Gareth, and Beck were already at their usual table when Eddie arrived and pulled a chair around to the head of the table.
"What took you so long?" Jeff asked and Eddie pulled the magazine out of his pocket.
"Someone left me a thoughtful present," he said, dramatically holding it up in front of his face to start reading.
Beck massaged the point between her eyebrows as he started reading about the sodomy, human sacrifice, and murder they were apparently all guilty of now. She did not have the mental space for this today, especially not after that fucked up pep rally. And she already had detention to worry about on top of that.
Eddie pulled a face at the word murder and slammed the copy of Newsweek onto the table as the other guys laughed. Mike and Dustin finally joined them, looking the way Beck felt. Eddie didn't go off the deep end as much as he used to, but when he did…
As Eddie sat back laughing at the article, another senior walked behind him and hip checked him in the back of the head. Eddie started to turn on him but Beck reached over and grabbed the collar of his vest, anchoring him in place.
He glowered at her interference so Todd jumped in, hoping to distract Eddie. "Society has to blame something. We're an easy target."
"We're the freaks because we play a fantasy game. But…"
Beck watched him bob his upper body before physically climbing on top of the cafeteria table. Even in her current mood, the dramatics did make her smile.
"As long as you're into band… or science…" Eddie announced, reveling in the attention he was drawing. People wanted a freak to stare at so fine. Fuck 'em. He'd give them a show.
"Or 'parties'..." he continued getting the finger from several students at that table. Then his gaze landed on the basketball assholes next to the party crowd.
He cupped his hands around his mouth, his anger bubbling over as he yelled, "or a game where you toss BALLS into LAUNDRY BASKETS!"
He watched Jason shoot to his feet and yell back, "You want something, freak?"
Eddie pulled devil horns with both hands, popping them up on either side of his head and sticking out his tongue while bugging out his eyes. He was pleased to see Jason looking flustered and embarrassed, murmuring "prick" before he sat back down.
Beck slapped the tabletop, wanting to get his attention, wanting to beg him to lay off and back down but also knowing better than to show weakness by saying this out loud. To her relief he dropped his hands and turned smirking to meet her eyes.
As he walked over toward their end of the table, he said, "It's forced conformity."
He crouched in front of her, still on the cafeteria table and kissed her with incredible tenderness, ignoring the gagging sounds the guys were making. He rubbed her jawline with his thumb and smiled at her before popping back up.
"That's what's KILLING the kids!" he exclaimed, rushing off the table and scaring another senior half to death. Beck crossed her arms as the guys laughed, less than thrilled he was picking on someone who was not an issue.
"That's the real monster," he said, sitting back down and picking up where he left off with his bag of pretzels. Beck had long wondered how he could eat small variations of the same thing every day. And then when he finally did go off of a food fixation, it was as if the food were dead to him.
"Speaking of guys who shoot balls into laundry baskets," Dustin started. Beck tried to stomp on his foot under the table, but he dodged away from her and pushed on, explaining they would all die without Lucas and could Eddie please postpone the game?
The other guys exploded and Beck felt deep annoyance for every one of them at that moment. It was bad enough already without their histrionics. Eddie had put so much time into this session and asking him to move it would be a very specific kind of insult; he saw it as disregard for his time and effort and asking for the campaign to take second place to the basketball game after what had happened at the pep rally and their stand off with Jason would only amplify that.
When Eddie asked if Sinclair had joined the dark side and Dustin confirmed, he threw a pretzel past Beck to hit the two of them.
"Jesus Christ!" Dustin said, looking over at her. "Any help here?"
"Nope. I'm not hungry any more," she said, shoving back from the table and grabbing her stuff. This was too much bad mood for her and she could at least go sit outside or in the library for a while.
She had made it a few steps before Eddie caught up to her, calling for her to please stop. He caught her shoulders and sighed, doe eyes wide and apologetic.
"Please come back," he murmured, resting his forehead against hers and touching their noses together.
"Eddie…" she sighed.
"I need you right now," he said and some of her annoyance melted off. She hated that she knew he was right. He only got like this when he was tremendously upset and she knew that.
"Please scale back," she said. "Stop trying to get your ass kicked and stop bullying the children."
"Promise," he said and Beck followed him back, throwing her bag under the table and focusing on her chicken fingers.
Eddie stayed standing behind her and turned back to Dustin, somewhat apologetic as he said, "Can I level with you? Jeff and Beck graduate this year. Gareth's got what a year and a half? Me, I am army crawling a way to a D in Miss O'Donnell's."
Beck snorted a laugh but said nothing. He had a C in her class; it just made a better story and he didn't like admitting how easy that grade had been after failing the exact same class the year before.
Eddie smirked at her and continued, circling behind Jeff and Gareth. "If I don't blow her final, I'm gonna walk that stage next month, I'm gonna look Principal Higgins dead in the eye, I'm gonna flip him the bird, I'm gonna snatch that diploma, and I'm gonna run like hell outta here."
He jogged off a short distance before Jeff called after him, "Didn't you say that last year?"
"Yeah! Yeah, and I was full of shit." He jogged back grinning.
Eddie locked eyes with Beck - his exhausted, fierce, talented girlfriend - and beamed despite everything that was going wrong that day.
"This year's different. This year is my year. Our year."
Beck blushed gorgeously when he said that and he scanned the cafeteria.
"I can feel it. '86 baby!"
He walked back behind Mike and Dustin. "You know what that means? It means you boys are the future of Hellfire. I knew it the moment I saw you."
Beck felt herself uncoil as he teased the freshmen for their dubious clothing choices on the first day of school and told them to find other lost sheep and get a replacement. They glumly agreed and thankfully the conversation shifted to another show opportunity for Corroded Coffin that Todd had heard about through a brother in college.
The last bell rang and Beck could almost weep with relief. They had all made it through the day unscathed and it was now Spring Break so everyone could simmer down before she had to face school again. This school year really could not end fast enough for her.
Eddie caught her around the waist as she put her books away and planted a long kiss in the crook of her neck.
"I'll be a little late to Hellfire," she told him apologetically.
"No worries. We're still waiting for Henderson and Wheeler to find a replacement, though they seemed to believe they had someone when they ran by me."
She kissed him and then smiled in a way that gave him goosebumps. "If you TPK us out of spite, I will fuck you up later. And not in a fun way."
"Who me?" he teased but he held out his hand. "All deaths will be honest and no surprises will be added beyond what was planned."
As she shook his hand, Beck heard Mr. Coggill call her name for detention.
"Coming!" she called back and Eddie started walking with her to the science room. "What's your plan until session?"
"Meeting an... unusual customer," he murmured.
Beck narrowed her eyes at him questioningly but they were at the door and Mr. Coggill was not going to leave.
"I'll explain later!" Eddie said, squeezing her hand and heading out of Hawkins High.
As he walked, Eddie fidgeted with the pick he wore around his neck, his other hand tightening on the lunchbox he carried with his supply added to it.
When Tina had told him Chrissy Cunningham had wanted to buy drugs, he had been so pissed at the obviousness of the trap he had just walked away from her. But she had followed him and insisted it was true, that Chrissy had been panicked and had cornered Tina in the bathroom and asked her who she knew that could help.
"So you told the girlfriend of a guy who wants to kick my ass that I could help her?" he scoffed.
"I think we both know you can," Tina snapped. "She'll be there after school. Your choice if you just leave her there."
And as much as Eddie would NEVER even breathe the thought aloud, he knew had a type and that it may or may not girls in distress. He clenched his fists so hard his nails bit into his palms as Tina walked off but he knew he would be going out there. So now he hoped that it wasn't in fact a really stupid trap or there was real potential that Beck would go Carrie on the entire school.
And since he was wrapped up in scoping around the picnic table for lurking jocks, he wasn't paying any attention when Chrissy backed straight into him. He tried to reassure her but she looked panicked, just like Tina had said.
"There's nothing to worry about," he said, taking off his jacket and placing the lunchbox on the picnic table. "No one comes out here. You're safe. I promise."
She didn't look reassured and was sitting there like she was in the principal's office. He surveyed the contents of his lunchbox, unconsciously sticking out the tip of his tongue and telling himself to just get through whatever the hell this was so he could head back and run his session. He had to explain buying drugs to her and offered her a half ounce of weed when a squirrel ran up a tree and she startled again.
Clearly not a trap if she was the scared one but it unsettled him that she seemed so terrified.
"Hey we don't need to do this," he said. "Just give me the word and I'll walk away."
And then she asked him if he ever felt like he was losing his mind, which was truly a bizarre question given the day he was having. But why the hell not? Why wouldn't this day get even fucking odder?
So he told her, "Uh... just on a daily basis. I mean I feel like I'm losing my mind doing a drug deal with Chrissy Cunningham, the queen of Hawkins High."
And then an idea occurred to him. He asked if she remembered that they had hung out before and when she didn't he pretended he had been stabbed in the chest, falling backward into the leaves and then pulling them out of his hair wildly.
That got a laugh out of her and he felt a swelling sense of pride. Beck always loved when he did shit like that and Chrissy seemed less like a kicked puppy now. She did remember his band which was flattering and he downplayed their recent success to make her laugh.
"You know," she finally said, giggling, "you're not what I thought you'd be like."
And oh man that landed. She had kicked him directly in the heart and she had no idea as he pulled his hair over his face to cover his reaction. What people thought he would be like was exactly the fucking problem.
"In other good news," he said, moving the lunchbox back to the table, "flattery works with me. So 25% discount for the half. Rob me blind here."
And then there was that puppy look again and she said the craziest thing he had heard that entire day: "Do you have anything... maybe... stronger?"