Author's Preface: I am also currently working on a Game of Thrones fic on this site but I wanted to get this first chapter up before Vol 2 premiers on Netflix and I, like the fandom, am holding my breath to see if Eddie makes it out alive. I have no idea how long this will be but I do have a game-plan.

Some quick notes:
1.) Events are out of order for the sake of canon divergence where Chrissy is not the first murder and Nancy and Robin have already spoken to Victor Creel.
2.) I gave Eddie an older brother, sue me.
3.) There'll be some repeat storytelling from the show. I know we all already know how this became that and affected this which made that happen but we have to assume the characters don't know that so I try to summarize/skim/skip where I can at least for the first two chapters.
4.) Title is subject to change, just needed something to get the story posted.

I'm going to try to remember what it was like to be a teenager. I was a teenager once, but not in the 80s, so forgive me if I make any timeline-inappropriate references.

Have fun, thanks for stopping by.

/ /

By all accounts, this was a bad idea.

Hawkins was in a state of unrest after the murders of Fred Benson behind the school on Wednesday evening and Dylan Eagan Thursday morning in his car alongside the road. Terrible, violent deaths they had been, according to police. Eyes gauged out, limbs broken and bent into irreparable positions. Whoever had committed the murders was still at large, monsterously strong, and psychotic to leave such a calling card in the manner he killed his victims. The mystery of why was still being asked because apart from attending the same high school, Fred and Dylan had nothing in common. One worked for the school paper and had grades of the highest caliber and the other was a swim meet champion who had ambitions to join the military.

Now, however, they joined the list of tragic and mysterious deaths and/or murders that had plagued Hawkins for the past few years, only theirs were the most gruesome deaths.

Following the news of Dylan's murder, everyone had gone walking in pairs all over the school and all after-school activities had been suspended apart from the basketball game because of course no one would want to cancel anything related to the pride and joy of Hawkins High: sports.

Eddie had reassured his fellow Hellfire Club members that the final round of their current campaign would resume as soon as possible but he had been none too happy with having to while away his time at the back of the bleachers waiting for the game to finish. He wasn't interested in the outcome; he just had to wait for the head cheerleader Chrissy Cunningham to be finished so he could escort her back to his trailer where he had promised her a healthy dose of Ketamine to treat some extreme anxiety she had been having.

The situation was incredible, to say the least. He'd always hoped to have a conversation with her after their falling out in middle school and then she had approached him at lunch the day before to ask him for marijuana to calm her nerves. Promising to bring what she asked after school the next day, he had met with her at a woebegotten picnic table just off school property and had what he could only describe as a pleasant few minutes with her.

Though it was slightly upsetting to hear that she had merely forgotten him since coming to high school, it at least took away the sting of thinking she had become disgusted with him like her boyfriend and other classmates. He supposed it was better to be forgotten than be despised. Still, she was as sweet and spunky as he remembered and his ego inflated ever so slightly when he made her laugh.

She was still on edge, though, and after asking him if he could offer her something stronger to combat her stress, she laid down a fifty dollar bill on the table. That was an open invitation if he ever saw one and he promised that she wouldn't have to pay that much, but that he didn't carry his alternate solution on him. Chrissy offered to go back to his trailer with him after the basketball game and that was an opportunity for some one-on-one time with her that he absolutely couldn't pass up.

Which was why he slugged through the two hour basketball game twiddling his thumbs and thinking longingly of the week-long break ahead until the final buzzer rang and he was able to escape the ecstatic crowd to find his way out to his van in the parking lot. Figuring it was better to not be seen with Chrissy so obviously, he had told her to meet him at the faculty entrance on the west side and sure enough, she was there when he drove around. She climbed in with some hesitation and continuously glanced back through the rearview mirror as if she were expecting someone to follow them for which Eddie couldn't blame her.

The circumstances would look suspicious to anyone. Whoever saw the darling star cheerleader of Hawkins High climbing into the freak and outcast Eddie Munson's dodgy serial killer van would expect some sort of horror story to follow in the morning of how she had been brutally raped and murdered. Not that that would happen, but people drew whatever conclusions they wanted to about him and he had long since given up trying to convince them otherwise. It was their loss that they didn't know Chrissy would be as safe with him as she could be with a killer on the loose.

He wasn't stupid enough to think that anything more would come of this night than her thanking him for the Special K and having herself a very uneventful evening once he drove her home, but it was enough to just be in her company again and have someone not of the male gender on speaking terms with him. It was more than just relief but also bragging rights that he had a member of the opposite sex not only on good terms with him, but in his trailer, conversing with him as if he were a functioning member of society. He couldn't remember the last time he had interacted with a girl and she hadn't cringed at him. Sure, it was fun and rewarding relying on the members of the Hellfire Club to always have his back but being friendly with the most popular girl at school was a breath of fresh air.

And what's more, she genuinely seemed to be enjoying herself when in his company. He had seen the fake smile she put on for her cheer squad but the smile he had weaseled out of her by doing nothing but intentionally making a fool out of himself was unguarded and unusually relieved. She had clung to his antics like a life preserver and when she had every reason to not be friendly with him, she still chose to be. There was no audience to impress and so what he had seen of her in the woods had been as real as anything he remembered of her from seventh grade when they last hung out together.

Above all, he had spent the majority of the basketball game mulling over her words. "I don't want you to go," she had said when he offered to keep mum on the subject of drug dealing with her if she didn't want to commit to the transaction. Had she meant she was still interested in buying from him? Was she apologizing for her skittish behavior? Or was she asking him to stay as a comfort to her? The first option seemed the most likely but he had been the one to bring the conversation back around to drugs, not her. She had all but forgotten the reason she came out to meet him until he reminded her. That nervousness had seemed to go away up until she had climbed into his van and even now as he made the turn off into the trailer park, she seemed to have calmed down once again.

The only option left would suggest that she did take some comfort in his presence and had not wanted to be alone. Given that she could seek out companionship from her boyfriend, jock and sport star Jason Carver, Eddie found it odd that she would turn to her drug dealer for reassurance. He couldn't wrap his head around what made her change in personality come to light now after six years but he wasn't complaining. Not yet.

It was still a bad idea, all things considered, but he had had worse ideas.

Only as he put the van into park and guided her to the steps up into his trailer did he remember the mess he had left the place in that morning. It had never bothered him before to live in such conditions but for whatever reason, it definitely mattered now. This was the first female to ever come into the trailer as far as he knew because his Uncle Wayne never brought women home and Eddie certainly never had.

Immediately upon entering he snatched up empty beer cans and trash from the coffee table and took the overflowing ashtray to the garbage under the sink, all the while trying to hide the mess from Chrissy's eyes. She was tactful enough to avert her gaze and instead admire Uncle Wayne's collection of hats lining the paneled wood close to the ceiling.

"You live here alone?" asked Chrissy and she sounded almost sad for him, as if loneliness was a curse instead of a blessing.

"Sometimes. My uncle works the night shift at the plant and it's his trailer so our paths don't really cross that much except on an occasional weekend so yeah, I'm on my own for most of the time. He leaves notes and money for me to do the grocery shopping and whatnot, but it's not a close, interactive relationship. Sometimes my older brother comes and stays with us for a week or two at a time."

"I don't remember you having a brother."

"Oh, you wouldn't," said Eddie as he dug around in some plastic tupperware to try and locate Chrissy's purchase. "He's eleven years older than me so he'd already graduated by the time you and me hit middle school. And no, he's not like me in case you were wondering."

"I wasn't," said Chrissy innocently. "But what's 'not like you'?"

"He's conformed to society, or at least, he looks like he has. We've got the same hair and eye color and that's about it. He's a pharmacist a couple towns over but he comes to check up on me and my uncle."

"What's his name?"

"Isaac." Eddie pulled the false bottom of the cutlery drawer open but only found a couple of nine millimeter bullets. Stuffing his hands into his jean pockets, he tried to remember where he had stored the Ketamine.

"You do have it, right?" asked Chrissy nervously.

"Definitely do, I just have to remember where I put it. You ever have that happen to you where you find such a good hiding place for something that even you can't find it when you need it? It's sort of like that. But I'll find it, just gimme a minute. Make yourself comfortable, take a seat or whatever."

Into the furthest back room he went, wading through a week's worth of dirty laundry to get to one of two dressers he had crammed into the room. He began pulling out bins at random and sifting through their contents until he emerged with a circular black container in triumph. Calling out to her, he assured her that all of her stress and anxiety was about to melt away as he made his way back to the front of the trailer.

She was exactly where he had left her, body posture stiff.

"Hey, you can park it, y'know. It's not like you need to stand on formality or any…anything."

As he approached, he saw that her irises were gone, replaced with only the whites of her eyes.

"Chrissy? You good?" Eddie waved his hand vigorously in front of her face to no effect so he snapped his fingers in her ear. Still, she did not respond and knowing she would not deliberately ignore him, he reached out a tentative finger and prodded her.

He might as well not have existed for all the response he was getting out of her by starting to raise his voice and clap in front of her face to snap her out of whatever fit she was having.

"Okay, it was funny the first half second, but I'm gonna need you to cut that out now," he said without humor. The situation was rapidly deteriorating and he was just starting to wonder how he would have to explain this catatonic state of hers to the nurses at the hospital if not the police first when the lights in the trailer flickered on, off, and then somewhere in between on a continuous loop that was more trippy than a strobe light at the local club which was located over seventy miles away.

Abandoning any notions he had of not touching her, Eddie pulled down on the skin beneath her eyelids but all he could see were the whites which, when combined with her bright turquoise eye shadow, gave her face a ghastly appearance.

"What the hell? Wake up, can you hear me? Whatever you're doing, snap out of it. Chrissy, wake up. I don't like this, Chrissy, wake up! Wake up now!"

She moved, but not of her own doing. She was suddenly at eye level with him and he blanched in confusion when he was positive he had been at least four inches taller than her three seconds ago. Glancing down, he saw the toes of her shoes leave the floor as she levitated in mid air.

"What in the–?"

Eddie stepped back in alarm but he only got two feet away when Chrissy soared upward and hit her head on the ceiling. Not altogether sure what his plan was, Eddie made a jump for her and latched onto her ankles, pulling with all of his strength but even that wasn't enough as he found his feet leaving the floor with her. Her skin was cold against his but he could feel her pulse throbbing madly, too fast for the human heart to sustain. As his legs flailed about beneath him, his sneaker kicked first into the floor lamp and then into the radio on the coffee table, knocking both over.

The lampshades had fallen off, illuminating Chrissy's face which now looked sunken in, ghostly, deathly. Music blared from the radio speakers, drowning out Eddie's cries as he felt something drop onto his head and glanced up to see red running from Chrissy's glazed over eyes.

"Chrissy! Goddammit, Chrissy, wake up now!"

As if her eyes were a slot machine rolling back into play, Eddie could see green come back when there had only been white before and with a shuddering gasp, she fell. Whatever force had been holding her up released her and she crashed down onto Eddie in a crumpled heap on the trailer floor. Her elbow had found his groin as padding when she came tumbling down but before Eddie could even nurse his injured muscle, Chrissy's arms were around him, clinging to him as she sobbed in absolute terror.

Nothing made sense in Eddie's mind except to do the same and he enveloped her shoulders with his arms, finding himself rocking her to the beat of the song still coming from the radio. Now he could feel the rapid staccato of her heart against his chest that was matching the adrenaline that was fueling his own and he realized that he had come within an inch of having this situation end in a very different outcome. He had just seen something unexplainable and his mind was having trouble grasping any of it despite having witnessed it in very real time.

After what seemed like hours, he cleared his throat and tried to wriggle out of her hold but she was reluctant to let go of him, hiding her face away in his jacket.

"Okay, but what the actual fuck was that?" he asked her. When she had no reply, he sat her up and very slightly shook her by the shoulders. "Tell me what that was."

"I don't know," she choked. "I don't know what happened."

A rapid pounding upon the door made both of them jump and Eddie snatched up the fallen floor lamp pole for reasons he couldn't explain before he went to the door and threw it open, poised to strike.

A red-headed girl stood there in pajama bottoms and an ill-fitting jacket she had obviously thrown on last minute. She stepped back in alarm at the sight of Eddie wielding the pole with a cry of, "Jesus!"

Eddie stuffed the pole behind his back and made a valiant attempt at normalcy. "Oh, hey, uh, it's Max, right? You live across the way?"

"Yeah, and I heard screaming. Is everything okay?"

"Yup, everything's just fine here." He tried to force a smile but his facial muscles didn't seem to be working.

"Then why did you almost hit me when you answered the door? You were screaming bloody murder and I know it was you. What happened?"

Dropping all pretenses, Eddie stepped back and attempted to shut the door. "Look, kid, it's not really a good time so–"

"Where's Chrissy?" Max demanded, planting her foot between the door and the frame to prevent him from closing it on her.

Shit. If this kid had seen Chrissy come in with him and knew she was here, any following information that might or might not be reported to the cops would place Eddie as a suspect. It was better to at least admit the truth–or part of it–now than to suffer repercussions later.

"She's right here," said Eddie, opening the door a crack so Max could see Chrissy on the floor with her knees to her chest, shivering.

"What did you do to her?"

Before Eddie could even conjure a lie, Chrissy leaped at Max's intervention like it was a lifeline. "It wasn't him. It wasn't anyone . It…it was some thing ."

Then, before he could stop her, Max pushed her way into the trailer and went to kneel beside Chrissy. "Earlier today when I heard you puking in the bathroom, you'd just come from Ms. Kelley's, right? Something's been wrong with you for a few days because I see you leaving her office as I'm going in and you're always crying. Is it Fred and Dylan? Is it something else?"

Eddie thought that bombarding Chrissy with these questions was highly invasive, but Chrissy was nodding almost enthusiastically in relief. She launched into a rapid-fire explanation of how she had begun experiencing headaches and nosebleeds, how she thought she was hallucinating and how her anxiety had skyrocketed and how she thought that drugs would somehow clear her head of everything that was making it so difficult to exist. She explained how she had begun hearing a mutated, evil voice that took on the persona of her mother and how she had run from the voice every time, only to come face-to-face with a grandfather clock that chimed with an out-of-tune gong and expelled black widows from its face. Then–and with the blood stains still on her face from earlier–real tears began to flow as she described what had happened between the moment Eddie left her to look for the Ketamine and when Max had knocked on the door.

"Eddie went into the back and I heard the clock again," said Chrissy, grasping Max's hands in her trembling ones. "I called for him, went to look for him, but I was back in my house and I saw my mom fixing my cheer uniform. She turned to look at me but it wasn't her face and it wasn't her voice. It was like a demon. So I ran again but I couldn't find a way out of my house and then…then I wasn't even in my house, but I was still trapped and I heard that voice calling to me. And this demon-thing, he cornered me, told me it was time for me to join him, time for my suffering to end. He tried to touch me and his eyes rolled into the back of his head…but then I heard music. I heard music so loud it started shaking the whole house and I could feel someone tugging on me. Then I heard Eddie shouting and it was like a hole opened up right next to me where I could see myself in this trailer, floating near the ceiling and Eddie was trying to pull me down. And I remembered…random things, good things like when my dad bought me my kitten and competing in the middle school talent show. As I remembered, the hole grew bigger."

"And you stepped through the hole," finished Max and Chrissy nodded fervently. "And you were back here, in your own body with Eddie." Eddie expected to be interrogated next but instead Max asked something that would not have made Eddie's top five most pressing questions in the moment. "What did the demon look like?"

Chrissy shook her head and placed a hand over her mouth as if the memory made her sick to her stomach.

"Please, Chrissy, it's important," Max insisted.

"How?" asked Eddie, finally finding his voice again after hearing Chrissy tell a tale that until now had only ever existed in fantasy novels and films. This was the sort of thing that Eddie played at, imagined, daydreamed of, but never once had he ever considered the notion that any realm of fantasy could be real. Now, for fate to bring him an old friend hand-in-hand with some sort of horror-realm, it was definitely enough to make him think he had been sampling his own goods too often as of late.

"This is gonna sound even crazier than what she just told us, but I've dealt with some weird and horrible shit like this before," said Max. "And I'm not the only one in Hawkins who has. There's a good handful of us and if what Chrissy saw is real, that means she almost died just like Fred and Dylan did which means that this thing is going to keep killing until it's stopped."

That was some deep and disturbing shit to consider. Chrissy had almost met the same fate as Fred Benson and Dylan Eagan, almost ended up a marionette with its strings cut, and it had almost happened right here in Eddie's trailer. Whatever was killing these teens, it wasn't done, and it would come back for those who had escaped it.

What did Eddie know about slaying demons? Why was he even contemplating this when it sounded so ridiculously far-fetched that it could only exist in a D&D game? Maybe because he had seen it happen right in front of him. He believed there was something at work here that he couldn't fully understand but if there were others who had seen the same sort of thing, he would need their help, for his own sanity. He also knew that no one would ever believe what had caused these murders unless they saw it with their own eyes which made it all the more imperative that those who knew the truth figure out a solution pronto.

"Okay, so who are these others who know what the hell we're dealing with here?" asked Eddie.

"Dustin Henderson and others. I'll go call him right now and he'll contact them," said Max, standing up and tossing her coat around Chrissy's shoulders. "Stay with her and if anything happens, call for me. Where's your phone?"

"Back room on the left."

"Stay with her," Max repeated.

"Nah, I thought now might be a good time to leave, maybe go grab a beer," said Eddie under his breath.

Now that it was just him and Chrissy again, he suddenly felt a twinge of awkwardness after their last interaction had been so intimate. He had never expected her to grab hold of him like that, like she was desperate for his protection, but then again, he had never expected her to levitate and be possessed by a demon either. Sitting down beside her, he drummed his knuckles on the floor in search of something to say but luckily, she was already on the ball.

"What are we supposed to do now?"

We as in her and Eddie, as if they were a team brought together by supernatural circumstances, which they were. For better or worse, he was linked to her now and this was information that she couldn't share with Jason or her parents, so she had to rely on him.

"Now we wait for Max to send in the cavalry. It's at least something to go on that other people in Hawkins know about this stuff, right? We'll tell them what happened and hope they've got a solution but in the meantime, can I, uh, get you anything?"

"I can't go home tonight. I told my mom I was going to visit Penny Kroehler's after the game and that I would call her if I decided I was going to stay, so I have a cover story."

Eddie saw where this was going and under normal circumstances, he would have been absolutely thrilled if she wanted to stay over even if it was just from being too tired to be driven home but these were as far from normal circumstances as it was possible to be and an extremely bad idea, given her social circle.

"Well, this is how I see things," he began kindly, not wishing to sound like he was scolding her. "The good citizens of Hawkins love to spy and gossip because God knows we've got nothing else to do, so if they see the Queen of Hawkins High leaving Eddie Munson's trailer the morning after, word's gonna spread like wildfire and then I can expect your boyfriend to pay me a visit here or behind the school gym when we get back from Spring Break where he'll likely beat the shit out of me so–"

"I can't go home tonight, not after this," Chrissy insisted. "I'll deflect any rumors I have to and do what I have to do to make sure you don't take the fall for any of this but please, Eddie, I don't want to be alone tonight. I can't." She grabbed his hands and that cold, clammy feeling was there again.

Eddie had no experience at all being around dead bodies but his uncle had used to work at the morgue and had described them to Eddie against both of their better judgment. That absence of warmth Eddie had gotten from holding onto Chrissy's ankles had felt like what he imagined cadavers felt like. For all intents and purposes, Chrissy had been dead for that minute or two from when he found her to when she fell on him. He did not want to ever experience that again.

"Please, Eddie," she pleaded, squeezing his hands hard enough to make the skin go completely white all over.

"Okay, calm down, you can stay," said Eddie, pulling his hands free and shaking the circulation back into them. "It's just–this is gonna be awkward no matter how I phrase it…I've never had a girl over before so…"

"Well, I've never been over at a guy's house either, so we're both new to this," said Chrissy and somehow, it lifted Eddie's spirits ever so slightly to hear her admit that rather than to stand a second on judgment for the fact that he was severely lacking in the experience department when it came to girls. "I don't need much, I can sleep on the floor–"

"No, nope, I'm not that much of a douchebag. I do have some chivalry left in me despite my good deed of the day. I've got some sheets and pillows ready because I'm expecting my brother any day now and he usually crashes on the couch, so I'll make up the couch for you and I'll just be in the other room–"

"No, you won't. You and me are going to take shifts watching over her," said Max, emerging from Uncle Wayne's room. "I got a hold of the party and they'll all be here in the morning but until then, you and I have to make sure this demon doesn't come back for Chrissy."

"Oh, is that all?" said Eddie waspishly. "How do we even do that?"

"I only have a theory–thanks to what Nancy told Dustin–"

"Nancy Wheeler?" said Eddie. "How does she factor into any of this?"

"She's one of the people in the party. She and Jonathan Byers were some of the first ones to go into that alternate dimension. She knows and so does the whole Byers Family, Mike Wheeler, Dustin Henderson, Lucas and Erica Sinclair, Robin Buckley, and a few more people who knew but didn't make it."

"What do you mean didn't make it?" repeated Chrissy quietly.

"They were victims, the same as you almost were," said Max, and now she was speaking as if she had lockjaw. "Barbara Holland, Bob Newby, Chief Hopper, my brother Billy…"

Eddie had known Billy briefly. They were both seniors last year but Billy had graduated while Eddie flunked science and math for the second year running. Billy had been a real asshole and though Eddie was not upset to see the back of him on graduation day, he was none too thrilled with the prospect of having to put up with him around town for the next few years or however long it took Eddie to move on to something better than Hawkins. Their paths had never crossed privately, for which Eddie was thankful since Billy had a violent reputation with jocks, nerds, and freaks alike.

Associating Billy Hargrove with this demon or something akin to it was another difficult pill to swallow. Dustin, Nancy Wheeler, Billy, Chrissy, and now him. All these people from separate walks of life who had the common denominator of having experience with the supernatural and some of them had fallen victim to it while others survived and had to deal with the aftermath, like Max.

Feeling that he should say something in regards to Max's dead brother, Eddie mumbled, "I'm sorry, kid. Losing someone, it sucks." When she raised an eyebrow as if to ask who, he shrugged and added, "They're not dead, but they might as well be. It's the same result, being left alone with no way to talk to them again, so I get it, sort of."

Chrissy seemed to sense the sudden tension in the air and came to their rescue by prompting, "You said Nancy Wheeler had a theory on how to stop this demon from coming back?"

"Right," said Max with a grateful nod for the change of subject. "Again, it's just a theory, but if it works, it works. What song was playing when you started levitating?"

Thinking back, Eddie almost laughed that it had happened not even thirty minutes ago and yet he couldn't remember for the life of him. There must have been more pressing matters like trying to prevent his friend from meeting a gruesome death.

"It was Valerie by Steve Windwood," said Chrissy.

"Well, Nancy thinks that music can keep you grounded while you're being attacked. She said there was another survivor of this demon and that he heard his favorite song, so the demon wasn't able to take complete control of him. So if it comes back, we just have to play your favorite song to give you that chance to escape again." Max turned to Eddie and asked, "You don't happen to have a supply of Steve Winwood music lying around, do you?"

"Do I look like I'm a fan of Steve Winwood?" Eddie gestured at his clothes.

"Alright, fine, we'll work on that later, but we'll need to keep the radio close by until we can pay a visit to the record store and see what they have. We'll have to keep a close eye on Chrissy until then. She can't be left alone, so either we'll have to send someone to stay at her house full time or she'll have to stay here–"

"My mom thinks I'm having a sleepover at Penny Kroehler's house, but I can only use that as an excuse for one night. She doesn't allow multi-night sleepovers," said Chrissy.

Eddie scoffed at the notion of this overbearing parent. "Doesn't allow it? How old does she think you are, six?"

"Her house, her rules," said Chrissy simply as if that explained it, which it did to some extent. It explained why so many graduates hit the highway as soon as they got their hands on their diploma. Being out of their parents' house meant they were free to make whatever decisions they wanted but if they relied on their parents to provide for them until they could find their own support system, they were subject to whatever stupid rules their parents had and even at eighteen, Chrissy was still under her mother's thumb so long as she lived under her roof as well.

"Does your mom have anything to do with why you were left so vulnerable for the demon to single you out?" asked Max. "This thing that attacked Will Byers a couple years ago, it fed on him because he had trauma that he couldn't escape, mental trauma. These creatures latch onto people who have a history of being abused and attacked, so if this demon found you, it's because you've got some stuff going on in your personal life that you haven't worked through yet."

Chrissy dropped her head in shame, a notion Eddie was all too familiar with. After the events of today, he couldn't put anything past her in terms of what she was hiding but it was jarring to think of the secrets this cheerleader with a seemingly perfect life could be concealing.

"I'm bulimic," said Chrissy, wiping furiously at her eyes and not looking at them. "It's an eating disorder and it causes body dysmorphia and all sorts of problems related to weight gain or weight loss and body appearance and it takes such a toll. I've had these problems since I was about eleven and my mom kept pressuring me to eat right, to do what I needed to do so that I lived up to her expectations. She pressured me to always look my best and would punish me for losing too much weight or not losing weight fast enough depending on what she thought I should look like. I started smuggling food into my room or buying enormous lunches at school and then throwing them up in the bathroom. So my mom thinks that by controlling every aspect of my life, she can put a lid on all of this."

"Wow, okay," said Eddie uncomfortably. "I'm not running off of experience here because my mom took off when I was eight but your mom sounds like kind of a major piece of work." He had another word in mind for her but figured Chrissy wouldn't appreciate him calling her mother that, especially if she was finding it so difficult to step out from under her mother's shadow. "And after all of that, you're sure she's not gonna call in a massive search party for you? I won't have red, white, and blue lights strobing up my trailer at three in the morning as the cops bust down the door looking for you?"

"No, I told her I would be at Penny's and I–oh, God, I forgot to call her! I told her I would check in before I went to bed and–"

Eddie seized her hand and dragged her into the back room where his uncle kept the telephone. He pushed it on Chrissy and made an urgent motion for her to dial her home number which she hastily did before nervously pressing the receiver to her ear. The other line rang for half of a beat and when Mrs. Cunningham picked up on the other end, it sounded like a small explosion had gone off. Chrissy held the phone out at arm's length and tried to speak over her mother's raging voice.

"Mom, I know, I'm so sorry. I tried to call but Mrs. Kroehler was using the phone all night and I–yes, I did ask but–I know. I know, I'm sorry I–yes, I know. I know. I won't. Yes, I promise. I will call the second I wake up in the morning. Yes, I'll be home by two. Okay, I love you too. Good night."

Upon hanging up, Chrissy handed the phone back to Eddie but he could see that that brief interaction with her mother had put her close to tears again.

Trying to make light of the situation, Eddie offered, "She sounds like a real charmer."

"She's going to be upset with me either way."

Eddie never considered himself to be a bleeding heart before but where this poor girl was concerned, he absolutely was. She had a massive amount of shit to be dealing with at home which was the least of her problems now that she'd almost been murdered by an unseen force of nature from another world. She deserved better, but how could anything be better with Carrie White's mother living in her house?

No doubt brought about by the events of this evening, Eddie now felt an overpowering protectiveness over Chrissy, enough to want to do something about it with what little power he had as an undergraduate weed dealer.

"Do you have anyone else you could stay with until graduation? A friend who could take you in so you can finish up school and then book it for the nearest bus stop to get the hell outta Dodge?"

Shaking her head miserably, Chrissy used the back of her cheer uniform sleeve to dab at her eyes. "If I tried, my friends' parents would just take me right back home. I don't have anywhere else to go."

"Well, staying at home with your mom isn't helping and it'll only make all of this–whatever–worse. You could, I dunno, maybe stay with Jason for a few weeks? Or crash here with me or something. You just can't–you shouldn't stay around something that triggers your emotions like that and makes it easier for this demon to get to you. I'm no expert but I think prioritizing your life is more important than staying in your mom's good books."

She hadn't appeared to hear anything he said except the one thing he had tried to gloss over. "You would let me stay here?"

"Well, yeah, if you needed to, not that you'd want to," said Eddie quickly, wishing he had just kept his mouth shut. "Anything to make sure you're safe, right?"

"Are you two done back there?" called Max which ended their little heart-to-heart right there.

Eddie dragged his mattress out of his room, scooted the coffee table against the wall, and repositioned the mattress next to the couch so he would be in close proximity to Chrissy if anything else happened during the night. He gathered up the pile of fresh bedding from the counter where it had been sitting for three days and set about to making up the couch as decently as possible for Chrissy and Max, uncomfortably aware of them watching him as he did so. Making the sheets unnecessarily straight and flat, Eddie motioned at his handiwork somewhat sheepishly. "It's not the Four Seasons, but it'll do in a bind. I'd offer my mattress but I don't think it's suitable for girls. I wasn't its first owner and even I have trouble sleeping on it when I remember where it's been so…yeah."

It wasn't too tight of a fit, but both girls' feet were still slightly overlapping each others' as they settled onto the couch.

Eddie felt a discomfiting lurch in his gut as he considered how this might look to any busybodies trying to peep in through the window. "Max, you're sure your mom is okay with this?"

"My mom's not sober enough to even know if I'm home or not, but I left her a note telling her I'm staying with the Wheelers. I've stayed there overnight a few times in the past, so she won't worry. It's better than telling her I'm staying here, anyway."

Eddie knew she hadn't meant for it to sound as condescending as it had and he waved off her apology before she could give it. "No, it's cool but I'm just sorta not on board with the whole thing because–"

"As far as anyone is concerned, my mom wasn't home and she and your uncle are good friends, so I asked to stay over here because I didn't want to stay by myself with a murderer on the loose," Max invented. "See? Easy lie."

Rubbing at the back of his neck, Eddie cringed that she still wasn't getting it. He could be in serious trouble if anyone looked in and saw him with with a fifteen year old and the daughter of one of the more affluent citizens of Hawkins.

"We'll cover for you if we need to, Eddie, don't worry," said Chrissy, attempting a smile in spite of how very not okay everything was at the moment.

"Yeah, thanks, but I'm still on edge about it so I'll just…I'll take first watch, I guess," said Eddie, settling down onto his mattress.

"Wake me up in two hours," said Max.

"Yeah, sure."

They had no television in the trailer so Eddie was left with nothing to do but stare at the ceiling and reimagine Chrissy's head floating just beneath it. He could not keep the image of her broken, mutilated body out of his mind, how close she had come to adding to the collection of disfigured bodies at the morgue. What would have happened if she had not asked to come home with him today? Would she have been alone to experience the terror of confronting the demon? Would she have screamed? Would her parents have heard her, or would they have stumbled upon her body the next morning?

Some higher power had influenced their paths to cross, deliberately placing him in her company on this night of all nights to come to her aid when no one else could have. She was alive thanks to him but he had never felt like less of a hero. All he had done was screamed and held onto her and his next intention had been to run, run the hell out or run for help.

It proved what a coward he was and how he was only good for vanquishing evil in a make-believe board game because when it came to seeing evil forces face-to-face, his first instinct was not to fight but to flee. He had only come to Chrissy's aid because she was still tangible, still right in front of him. True, he had been scared shitless but he had tried and it was just luck that his efforts had paid off before he had time to run his ass out of the trailer.

"Eddie?"

Lifting his head off his arms which he had been using as a pillow, Eddie saw Chrissy staring at him from two feet above on the couch.

"What's up?"

"I'm sorry."

"For what?" asked Eddie, nonplussed.

"For dragging you into this."

"It's not like you made the decision to have a demon try to possess your soul and you decided to invite me along for the ride. As good of a time as that sounds, neither of us signed up for it, so don't apologize. I'd rather have a vague idea of what we're up against rather than be oblivious and think it was a human on a killing spree. It's nice to know no humans as of yet want to kill me."

"You could have ran away."

Yup, the thought did occur to me.

"You could have done anything but what you actually did so thank you. Thank you for staying."

I don't want you to go, she had said. So he stayed, then and now. He stayed and she was alive because he chose to do so. Only this morning he had woken up with dreary and depressing thoughts because D&D had been canceled and he was ending this day with Chrissy Cunningham sleeping on his couch as they prepared to face a tomorrow in which they were to learn of an evil existence that had seeped into their world.

Typical Hawkins.

"Eddie?" Chrissy prompted when he had said nothing for a few moments.

"I mean, I just remade an old friend so of course I wasn't gonna let you go," he said with false bravado. "For as long as that controlling mother and overprotective boyfriend of yours allow it, you've got me. Try to get some sleep now, okay?"

He saw a ghost of a smile play across her face and then she turned away to face the wall. Checking his watch, Eddie saw that he still had another hour and fifteen minutes to go before it was Max's turn for watch duty. Sighing, he resumed his incredibly interesting observation of the ceiling, lost in thought.