As crisis tethers went, the high school's hose wasn't the worst option. Eddie and Chrissy had used their beloved tree branch to carve an opening in the gooey, awful skin covering the gate Patrick had left behind. There, just beyond, their friends were in the real Hawkins forest, arguing about something together while Steve and Dustin unwound the hose. When they'd broken through, Harrington and his ward had been in the middle of walking backward, opposite each other, to pull the hose out to its full length. Everyone evidently saw the tree branch jut out into the night air right away. Plus you couldn't escape the nasty, slug-being-throttled sound the gate made when it was being punctured.
The group had cheered and made general exclamations of relief when they'd peered in and seen Eddie and Chrissy peering back. Wounded, swaying on their feet, but alive. Eddie didn't think he'd ever seen a softer expression on anyone's face when he glanced at Chrissy. She had stared down at the Hawkins group, open-mouthed, a massive grin threatening to dwarf her eyes. Like she was looking at the Christmas tree the town put up in the square every winter. Like they'd been trekking through some godawful desert, and the beaming faces on the other side of the gate were multiple glasses of ice-cold water. It made the color better in her cheeks.
Evidently it had been Henderson's idea to use the hose. It shouldn't have worked the way it did—or maybe it should've, maybe this was exactly how this stuff worked. What did he know? Everything about the Upside Down was wrong anyway. They'd tossed the hose in all its bleached, teal glory down into the gate (to Eddie it looked like they were throwing it up), and it came unfurling out at the other side. Sticking straight up like a rubber tree.
Chrissy had been coughing, bent double, and when Eddie had said, "Ladies first?" she shook her head. He was loathe to let the girl stick around in the dangerous Vecnascape while he saved his own bacon, but she was eyeing the hose with some serious trepidation. And she kept shivering. Maybe she still needed a minute or two, just to get her bearings after the Bat Rumble of '86. For Eddie, the solution to this was going through the portal, where it was safe. But he could see she'd need proof it wasn't going to turn on them like everything else had so far.
So he volunteered to test it out.
At first, Eddie had tried using it like a firepole, maybe slide down it, and there was no cool way to do that. No point in trying to be cool, either, because the moment he started sliding through the gate's vine-encrusted, red entrance, he felt life go screwy. Time warp or some crap. Maybe he'd just been falling too quickly the first time to notice it. It was like something was sucking away at his chest, pulling the rest of him with it, and for two seconds he didn't know which end was up. Then he was hanging, not sliding, with his shoes pointed straight at the night sky.
It was warm. It was so warm. It was only spring, spring and nighttime in Hawkins, but it was cozy compared to the demon dimension. And the air was almost sweet. Like inhaling a whole handful of Runts. It hit the back of his throat just as hard, no hacking, no vicious little white things trying to take you down from the inside. He'd never truly appreciated oxygen before. Real, untainted oxygen.
After the culture shock wore off, he could focus on the fact that he was hanging upside-down in the air. Clinging to a hose.
Dustin, close by, swore loudly and paired it with a giggle.
"Trippy," Max said somewhere to his left. She sounded a little breathless.
Eddie felt the blood start rushing to his head. Maybe he was only going to be up here while he was still bathed in the red light. Like Star Trek or something. Maybe he was about to fall back through any second. He went one-handed, testing that theory. Still just hanging. He could hear himself making little noises, none of them too manly, basically just grunting as he fought to keep his grip on the hose. It seemed slippery. It also began to hurt in the case of his injured palm.
"Alright, dude—easy—" Harrington began.
Eddie felt a hand grip the back of his vest and pull.
Instantly, gravity applied. He went tumbling out of the air, Harrington let go of him, and he landed with very little grace on the ground. Still better than a quake in the Upside Down. Dustin was there right away, Buckley too, both of them tugging at his sleeves and arms, helping him up.
"We thought you were a goner, man," said Henderson, clapping Eddie into one of those bear hugs he was so good at.
"Uh-huh." Eddie winced and didn't try to hide it. "Me too." His arms came up to wrap gingerly around the kid's back. Everything hurt now. Everything. Hand, feet, demodog ankle. Shoulder. Shoulder especially. Was he still bleeding?
"Holy crap, what ate your jacket?" Robin yelped. "Is that more blood, oh my god—"
Yup, still bleeding. Funny, he could barely feel it. Just a thick pulsing, his heartbeat in his shoulder.
He shuffled and almost kicked Mayfield right in the arm. She was crouching down near his ankle, messing with the shredded strip of Carver's hoodie. Eddie could feel her pale little fingers in between the cotton and his ankle.
"What's this?" Max asked, so quiet it was almost like she was talking to herself. Her headphones were clutching the sides of her skull, but one muff was strategically shoved off of her right ear.
"Ugh." Lucas was behind her, still standing. "Is that infected?"
"Is that infected?" Max mimicked him, smirking over her shoulder.
"Git—" Eddie shook his leg like he was fending off a racoon. Held up his hands and arms in a give-me-space gesture. The freshmen and Robin scattered a bit, allowing him a clear path to the gate. Chrissy still had to come through.
He leaned over the side, feet several inches away from the nearest vine. If he wasn't so long in the—well, everything—he might not have been able to see properly. As it was, he could just make out the cheerleader's head and shoulders, flipped the wrong way, approaching the hose. She looked cold and wet and severely wigged.
Nancy was stretching out to grab the hose, steady it after he'd left it swinging wildly. "Okay, come on through!" she shouted, like that was going to make a difference.
Clearly Chrissy knew it was her turn. She knew he wasn't on the other end of the hose anymore. That wasn't the problem. She had her arms tucked around herself, from what he could see, and was looking more sickly than ever. Did she have a fear of heights? She'd climbed Skull Rock easy enough. Everything else she'd done lately had been full of athletic prowess. Didn't they have to shimmy up a rope every week in P.E., back in middle school? She'd been good at that. This was…
Actually, this was nothing like that.
"Hey," he barked, and she jumped slightly, squinting up at him. He let his tone soften up, however dull with tiredness, conscious of the gang all looking at him in surprise. "It's okay. Alright? C'mon, it's nothing."
Chrissy worried her bottom lip and took hold of the hose from her end, examining it. Like she was judging the distance. Impossible; the warping thing made any semblance of distance go out the window.
She was taking too long. There were monsters over there.
"It's easy," Eddie added, a little louder, impatience and sympathy braiding themselves as he stood there. Felt his arms gesturing vaguely and slapping back down to his sides. Ouch. "I promise."
He could feel Wheeler watching him, saw her nodding out of the corner of his eye. Nancy let go of the hose when Chrissy started sliding down toward them. It was weird, watching from this angle. It really looked like she was far away from them, far down some hole, rapidly skidding feet-first toward their faces. Like a train on a television screen, chugging toward the camera. A very petite train that wore blue eyeshadow.
Eddie and Nancy stumbled backward when the warp sucked Chrissy through. Her whole body did a 360, and she didn't seem at all fazed by the change in direction. She wouldn't be. Cheerleader. Flipped all the time. They made everything look easy.
Chrissy's stick-thin legs unfolded, straight and pointing like arrows right up to the treetops. Her shoelaces dangled. Her fingers dug hard into the hose, and every inch of her was shaking. It would probably take her a bit longer to warm up. But Eddie saw the change in her expression as her body registered a more friendly habitat. Her eyes got fuller, opening wider. There was something in the family of a smile on her mouth, but she was too busy gasping and struggling not to teeter to let it out.
Eddie was reminded a little jarringly of that night in the trailer. She wasn't really floating this time. She was hanging, hanging the wrong way up. But it still had him breaking out into a sweat. His brainwaves associated a sans-gravity cheerleader with imminent danger.
After a moment of everyone staring, taking in the phenomenon—it was a sick visual—Steve took the lead again. With one wide step forward, he gingerly grabbed at Chrissy's ankle. Robin hurried to help, stretching to her full beanpole capacity to reach Chrissy's shoulder without toppling into the Upside Down. Together, they started gently tugging her out of the red glow and above solid ground.
Just as Eddie had, Chrissy hit the forest floor as soon as she was out of range of the gate. Steve and Robin both tried to steady her fall, and Eddie felt himself move slightly toward them too, Wheeler at his heels, but there was no need. As soon as she fell, she got right back up again. He saw her legs wobble like dual spring doorstops.
Chrissy swayed a bit, and Robin's hands came out and then stopped halfway when the other girl caught herself. Eddie watched Chrissy swallow, looking up at Steve and then Robin with clean, clear relief. She chortled, obviously just happy to be back home, and the other two chortled with her. Slow smiles started going around, like an infection, like everyone was catching the way Eddie's heartbeat was slowing down as he drank in the reality of being in the right dimension.
Then Chrissy threw up. She vomited all over Harrington's shoes.
"Oh-kay—" Steve cried, jumping backward like she'd swung at him.
Dustin let out a curse, but Eddie caught Lucas and Max clutching each other, desperate, trying to contain fits of laughter. Robin said something in a stage-whisper about not knowing cheerleaders could throw up. She was patting Steve on the shoulder, grinning helplessly. Eddie, for his part, had absolutely no idea what to do when someone was being sick in the middle of the woods. And his shoulder felt like it was burning off.
Poor Chrissy was back to full-body shakes. She remained bent over for a moment, coughing a bit, and then looked weakly up at Steve. "Sorry."
Nancy put an arm around Chrissy's back and steered her gently away from the gate and the group. "Don't worry about it."
"Wait, do we just—I mean, do we leave this thing here?" Robin started helping Dustin pull the hose out. It seemed to come away slowly, with a windy, slurping sound. They used both hands, faces tight, as if they were yanking someone out of a sinkhole. "The gate?"
"It's not like we have a way to plug it up or anything," Lucas mused, toeing a clump of dirt into the vine-encrusted maw.
"There's no point," Nancy called. She was already halfway past the first handful of trees, but she stopped to face them again. "If Vecna wins, the Upside Down comes to Hawkins no matter what. Right now, we focus on…" She took a breath, glancing at Chrissy in a way that might have been trying to look motherly. "…resting up, and—and planning our next move. Okay?"
"Eye on the prize, Lucas," Dustin added, batting his friend in the shoulder on his way past.
It was like waking up from a nightmare, silencing your alarm clock, and falling back into a dream. Slightly similar, not as scary. They were back to walking through the woods. Leaves underfoot, branches blocking the sky, little sounds in the distance. But this was a version of the woods that wasn't trying to kill them. It was dry, and those sounds were crickets and a lukewarm spring breeze. The branches were growing little leaves or flowers or whatever. Sustaining life, and not the monster kind.
Nancy and Chrissy had drifted to the back of the group, maybe because Chrissy was shaking again. Maybe because puking your guts out put more of a strain on someone's motor abilities than Eddie remembered. Every time he glanced their way, they seemed a little further behind than they had before. Nancy had taken her arm away, but she kept close by. Had a weird expression on her face—like she was trying to look comforting, or maybe motherly, but on Wheeler it didn't quite fit. She just looked nervous. Maybe a little sad. Chrissy, for her part, kept her face glued to the horizon. Sometimes she'd catch Eddie checking back at them and purse her lips in a kind-of smile. All greenish.
He himself wasn't feeling any of that portal-induced nausea, or whatever had made her redecorate Harrington's footwear. Eddie had a newfound appreciation for the forests surrounding Hawkins. He might never go walking through them at night again—ever—just on principle, but for now, he soaked in every single detail. The more he looked, the more he could convince his uneven pulse and the hairs on the back of his neck he was safe. Relatively. It might have been the first time Hawkins ever seemed like home. Like somewhere he wanted to be. After the Upside Down, the bottom of a dumpster behind The Hideout would feel like home. Even his shoulder had dried up, complementing the sentiment.
The sponging-up of peace was interrupted by Dustin and Steve. They were talking somewhere behind him, trying to use low voices and failing miserably.
"What were those, like thirty bucks?" asked Dustin.
"Fifty," Steve scoffed. Eddie heard him scraping and scraping at the mesh on the ground with a foot, trying to wipe off the puke.
"Fifty bucks for a pair of shoes? Don't be a baby, Harrington," Robin said, pausing so that she could fall in beside Steve.
"Hey, you can't just throw this stuff in the wash, all right? I scraped for weeks to get these—"
"You're such a girl, god."
"Hey—Eddie—" Dustin sped up a little to join him, maybe bored with the shoe talk. "So uh, what exactly did you guys face in there?" When Eddie turned to look down at him, distracted, he added, "In the Upside Down? Come on, you gotta have some data—"
"'Kay first of all, we weren't there for data, man, we were there for you." Eddie almost stopped, glancing sideways at the shrimp on his way over a log.
There was a second or so of silence on Dustin's part. They walked a few more steps and Henderson looked up briefly, like he was gauging Eddie's expression. Like the mold in his tone wasn't enough. "Yeah. Yeah, I know."
Step. Crunch. Step. Crunch.
"Sorry."
Eddie was surprised Dustin didn't choke on the word. For all the kid's bloviating, he was usually right. He must not be accustomed to eating much humble pie in his short little life. Suddenly it was hard to catch his eye. All he'd been doing was taking a leak, after all—not like he'd meant to get them stuck in an alternate dimension full of cannibalistic bats. Couldn't leave him dangling on that hook all night. Eddie weaved around a shrub in their path, trying to ignore the sticky aching in his shoulder. And hand. And leg. Rest sounded really good right about now.
"Yeah, well." Eddie winced when they jumped a small ditch, giving silent thanks his demodog-sliced ankle wasn't giving out on him by this point. "Never leave a member of the party behind, right?"
Dustin grinned up at him, eyes all but disappearing. Gums and unashamed fondness shooting up at Eddie in the moonlight filtering through the branches. Little freak. That was all that needed to pass between them, luckily—no need for a hug or a sob story exchange about bathrooms and demon realms.
"Why am I suddenly getting the feeling we're lost?" Robin called to no one. Maybe everyone.
A few faces turned to look back at her, or to look at each other. Max's was by far the easiest to see; her pale, freckly skin was almost silver under the moon. She was walking slowly beside Lucas. Their shoulders kept brushing, but their hands were carefully glued to their respective hips. Nothing like the oncoming apocalypse to rekindle erratic hormones. Or love. Or whatever you called it when you were that short and still looked like you were supposed to be playing with Legos, and you like-liked each other. He couldn't help subconsciously rooting for Sinclair—it was hard not to; the guy kept looking at Max with his tongue hanging out. Basically.
"Hey, don't look at me," Dustin raised both hands. "Mad Max stole my compass."
Max rolled her eyes. "Confiscated it."
"Stole."
"Aw, I'm sorry not all of us want to hear about magnetic shields every sixty seconds—"
"Magnetic fields, and you know what, if you can't even use the correct terminology—"
"All right, hey!" Steve quickened his pace, interrupting just as Max stopped to turn a withering sneer on Henderson. "Inside voices." He knocked Dustin's hat over his eyes on his way past, snatching the compass out of Red's hand. "There? See, now nobody gets the compass."
Max flipped him off. Dustin made an unimpressed grab for his tool, but Steve was too quick for him.
"And we are not lost, 0kay?" Harrington went on, glancing at Nancy, then Chrissy, then somewhere between the trees ahead.
"This isn't the way we came in," Robin argued.
"Would you relax? I know exactly where we are. Van's right up here."
Eddie felt his eyebrows climbing. "Wai—van? As in—my van?"
"Yeah. What, did you think we walked here, it's like eight miles away." Steve shook his head, with an aged expression that reminded Eddie of Wayne's trademark 3 AM Face.
Sure enough, one semi-steep incline and a bunch of low-hanging branches later, they stood behind Eddie's glorious van on the side of the road. It was dented, it stank of weed, it looked like stranger danger, and he'd never seen anything more beautiful. He'd only been in the Upside Down for a few hours, but up until this point it had seemed like days, like a long string of days on a bad vacation that came out of a horror movie. Limping up to his van, Eddie was finally starting to feel like maybe it all had been a bad dream. The pulses of pain going on in 40% of his body begged to differ.
The sight of his vehicle did little to quench the violated feeling that was building his chest. Eddie hobbled to the driver's door and yanked it open. The front seat was practically a foot closer to the pedals. The violation continued; both arms of the seat had been shoved up. And someone had removed the tube of Pringles he kept on the floorboard in case of snack emergencies. The Pringles and…every other miscellaneous item. The area was a desert. And the seat was so far up.
He cursed. "Which one of you halflings took the wheel?"
"I drove," Nancy answered distractedly, helping Chrissy up into the back of the van.
"How'd you get in?" Eddie demanded, coming around to the rear, where the others were filing inside.
"You left your keys in the gym," Lucas explained, shrugging.
Eddie jerkily felt all around his hips, suddenly noticing the lack of weight and jangling in any of his pockets. At least he hadn't misplaced the cigarettes before he'd decided to venture into Hell. Priorities.
He pinched the bridge of his nose and practically loomed over Nancy, one arm gripping the open door. "You can't just commandeer a man's ride, Wheeler, all right? That is sacred territory."
"It's disgusting," Robin countered, already settled inside. "Do you know how much crap you left up there? It's a safety hazard."
Dustin climbed in next, trying to get his balance as the van rocked under the shuffling and scooting of several people at once. "How would you know? You don't drive."
In Robin's honor, Steve got halfway in behind the kid, giving him a short shove that sent Dustin sprawling further into the car's belly. Henderson immediately started trying to trip Steve on his way into the van, unsuccessfully. Max, seated beside Sinclair near the front, shot them both glares and leaned out of the way of Dustin's flailing shoe. Corroded Coffin had met its match in terms of rowdy passengers. Of course, these guys didn't have the added hindrance of a bunch of expensive band equipment cramping their style.
Chrissy was hunched somewhere in the middle; Eddie saw the crown of her head and her sneakers poking out from behind Harrington as the latter sank into a crouch against the left side. Her shoelaces were almost black with mud. Her legs were shaking.
Eddie rotated his hand quickly in Nancy's direction, snapping his fingers once or twice. "All right, well, daddy's home now, cough 'em up."
Nancy made a face at him, eyes sharpening into big blue steak knives on the second snap. "I'm taking us back."
"Nnn—Wheeler—"
"You're limping, your—shoulder is covered in blood, you just got out of there. There's no way you can drive like this."
"Wh—jus—" Eddie snapped his hand away from his face, looking around helplessly. He flung his arms out, gesturing to the universe in general and the fact that he was limping, shoulder covered in blood, and still the owner of the van. "I like my odds!"
"I don't."
It was amazing. Nancy was so much shorter and so much more skeletal than he was, and she still managed to tower over him with every missing inch, just by looking at him like that. The thought of driving after what he'd been through did sort of make his shoulder hurt worse. But this was his van. His baby. And she'd taken away his Pringles.
To his right, a throaty scoff came from Steve. The guy was almost laughing, eyes on Wheeler. "Du—just get in, man. You're not gonna win this one."
Nancy's expression didn't change.
Eddie tried not to sigh too loudly. He wasn't five. Head twisting in a half-shake, he pursed his lips and swung himself up into the van, taking a seat beside Dustin. His legs were longer than the others'; the toes of his shoes touched Chrissy's, who happened to be seated directly across from him. Eddie watched Nancy shut the doors of the van, watched her haul her wiry little body up into his front seat, watched her turn the key four times before the engine roared to life. She looked too at home up there.
Loudly, jerkily, the drive back to Hawkins High began.
Robin was sitting on Dustin's other side. She leaned across, hands gripping her drawn-up knees, to get a better look at Eddie's ankle. "How'd that happen, anyway?"
He winced as they went over a pothole and everyone wobbled. The gashes in his leg weren't as deep as he'd thought they were when Hawkins was blue-black and filled with white death flakes. They looked awesome. Didn't feel awesome. They were browning, now, with dried blood, same as his shoulder, and nasty around the edges. He wasn't the type to avert his eyes, driving past roadkill, but the sight of his own body being a little mangled was getting hard to look at.
"Was it the demodog?" Lucas asked, stretching too far over Max to see. Headphones askew, she silently slapped her arm against his chest to force him backward. Probably couldn't hear any of them over Kate Bush.
Eddie caught Chrissy watching him nervously. Maybe she was picturing the monster too.
Before he could respond, Dustin said, "Of course it was, are you kidding me? Look at the size of those, that's like six inches long, each."
"Six inches? Come on," Lucas scoffed, head tilting.
"At least!"
"You're exaggerating. Get a ruler."
"Get a ruler, I've seen the claws on those things; remember Dart?"
"Are you seriously measuring the size of his—monster scratches right now, that is disgusting," Robin cut in, wrinkling her nose.
Dustin spread his palms. "Hey, know thine enemy—"
"Okay, the time for children's input is now at an end!" Robin made slicing motions with both hands. She was looking at Chrissy, mouth twisted.
The cheerleader's gaze was now firmly fixed on the spot where Eddie's shoes touched hers, knuckles white on the shredded hem of her blouse. The green hadn't gone out of her complexion; it seemed to be getting worse. He wished he hadn't lost that piece of the hoodie. That way no one would have to see the ugly, sticky marks tearing up his ankle.
Steve had his head leaned back, like he wanted to sleep and couldn't. When everyone started discussing Eddie's injuries, he had sat up and was now hunched, glancing from the demodog slices to Eddie. "So…how'd you guys get out of there?"
Eddie snorted, flapping a halfhearted point toward the girl huddled across from him. "That was all Chrissy."
Everybody looked at her, Robin grinning outright. Steve's eyebrows shot up.
Chrissy's head rose, eyes big and round and surprised. Her lips parted very slowly, like her mouth had fallen asleep. "Nn—no, we—"
"Yes, yeah, come on," Eddie spoke over her, tone dry and fending off her modesty. He could feel himself start to smile at the way she was trying to argue. "If you hadn't've gotten us out the window—"
"But—you're the one that kicked it—"
"You kicked it?" Dustin slapped Eddie in the ripped-up shoulder, jerking up straighter. His voice cracked. Lucas was practically in Max's lap now, craning to be part of the conversation, nearly salivating at the details.
Eddie shot Dustin a look, glowering at the hand that had slapped him. After Henderson's curt, low sorry, he said, "S'not like it helped, I mean—" he gestured with twiddling fingers to the ruined ankle.
"Yes, it did!" Chrissy shot back, voice a little stronger now.
"Dude. You kicked a demodog," Lucas said to the right, dodging Max's arm. "That took some serious guts—"
"Sit down, Lucas," Nancy ordered from the front.
Steve made a huffing, laughing kind of grunt, like he was agreeing with Sinclair. Eddie twitched a smile in spite of himself, remembering the sound the creature had made when his foot had connected with it. Now that it wasn't happening actively to him, he could look back and be proud he hadn't just wet himself and been eaten. Plus it was nice having the shrimps looking at him as if he were Robilar incarnate.
A quick glance straight ahead told him that that was nothing compared to the way Chrissy was looking at him. She was staring so openly, head lowered, Eddie thought his shoulder might have started bleeding afresh. Nope. She wasn't looking at his shoulder, she was looking at his face. And smiling. There was an overflowing friendliness in it, more than ever. And something else, because her eyes were flicking from his face to her hands, all unsteady and sweet. Like he was some kind of movie star. Eddie's skin prickled a little under all that warmth; he hadn't done anything worthy of that. He'd been screaming 90% of the time they'd spent in the Upside Down. And, disarmingly, she managed to continue looking like a million bucks when her hair was ignoring the scrunchie and her skin was still all pale and sickly. Maybe that wasn't a cheerleader thing. Maybe it was just a Chrissy thing.
If this was what kicking a monster got him—praise and prom queen smiles—line them up. Rosebud teeth and all. His ankle wasn't that bad.
"Hey, that's nothing," he told the group, bouncing his eyebrows. His tone slid into a rapt, raspy drawl. "You shoulda seen Miss Indiana over here with the bats. Like an Amazon war queen."
"Li—like a what?" Steve asked.
"Did you say bats?" Robin glanced at him so sharply, her hair hit Dustin in the eye.
"Yeah, bats. Bats." Eddie jerked his own head toward his bitten shoulder. "Bats, plural. Like the size of my head, man." He tried to mime a noose with his arm. "They got these tails, and—they just wrap around you, big, nasty prehensile—"
"Is that what happened to you?" Dustin interrupted, looking Chrissy up and down with new respect in his bulldog eyes.
Chrissy's fingers immediately snapped to her throat, rubbing a perfect necklace of a bruise, right above her actual '86 necklace. Her legs pulled up, feet firmly breaking contact with Eddie's, as her whole frame worked to make the mark less noticeable. Eddie noticed it anyway. Before, it had been too…much, everything, to really take stock of how exactly Chrissy had been injured. Now he realized there was another mark just like that around her leg, where her jeans had been dragged up, wrinkled and muddy. He wondered if it itched. If it throbbed the way his shoulder was throbbing.
Everyone was gawking at Chrissy again. Eddie raised his voice. "Didn't stop her from annihilating those things, I'm telling you—"
Her smile came back, bigger this time, filling her whole heart-shaped face. Her tongue poked out a little between her teeth, too. A few of the people around them made impressed sounds as he went on, filling the back of the van with little pieces of laughter and awe. Even Mayfield had removed her headphones. He was nothing if not a great yarn-spinner.
"…and they are on me, man, I mean, all sides, swooping and chewing—"
Dustin slapped the floor of the van, which had kind of a lousy affect as the van hit a speed bump. "Sick—"
"Ugh, you are so infected with something—" Robin's eyes peeked out from between her fingertips. Eddie ignored this theory.
"—one of 'em lodges its teeth right into my shoulder, like, like a Vice—and then suddenly, whack, the pressure stops. And she just nails it with the branch—"
While the others were interjecting with the appropriate sounds and single-word reactions, Eddie watched a light come on in the cheerleader. It got brighter the louder the air became. Her eyes bounced from face to face as they unleashed their feedback, her hands up and gesturing aimlessly.
"No, it was so scary, I kid you not—"
"Come on, you were killin' it," Eddie cut her off. Voices lowered, anticipating more of the story, but he dropped it, focusing on the girl in front of him. "If it weren't for you, we would've never made it out of there." The atmosphere stilled, and Eddie kept his eyes on Chrissy, determined, tone normal again. "Take the credit."
They were back in town now. Streetlights lazily passed overhead, beaming orange glows intermittently in through the front windows. They lit up Chrissy's teeth when she grinned at him, glinted off her necklace. Her posture was more relaxed than he'd ever seen it.
"Okay," she said, bubbling out a short laugh. Her eyes rolled a bit, but she made a little dip of her head that had her bangs swooping. "I accept the credit."
A few of them chortled with her, Lucas making a drawn-out yeah to encourage her. Eddie thought he saw Nancy glance back, bow of a mouth smoothing out in her own smile. Rare sight. When they pulled into the school and parked near the gym, the general feeling of good company and mind-melting relief was practically its own drug. The group got out, shushing each other and generally trying to move quietly, Nancy resuming her post as support for Chrissy on their way inside. Dustin offered his own shoulder for Eddie to lean on—he was the one more heavily limping—but Eddie flicked him in the forehead by way of refusal.
They entered the gym and Wheeler started dishing out the game plan for the rest of the night. Eddie watched Chrissy swaying, bruised, exhausted, and in desperate need of new clothes. But the light was still on underneath.
It must have been about 4 AM when Eddie gave in to the ever-present urge to move.
The very first thing Nancy had done upon entering the school had been to give Max a strip of medical gauze. She'd pilfered it from the nurse's office at some point, and she told the redhead to patch Eddie up while she herself took care of Chrissy. Mayfield and Munson had straddled one of the bleachers, the tight little redhead snapping at him every seven seconds to hold still. Wheeler had led Chrissy out of the gym, of all things, to be taken care of somewhere more secluded. Or maybe somewhere with better seating.
Eddie had endured Max wrapping his wounds with an inexperienced hand, guessing she hadn't seen M*A*S*H much recently. Her hands were way steadier than Chrissy's, but she kept tying it too tight or cursing under her breath when she couldn't get it to rip evenly. There was some kind of thick tension around her, like she was swimming in angry soup all the time. He was no stranger to bitterness himself—maybe it had something to do with growing up trailer trash—but the feeling coming off of this kid, in blunt waves, was stronger than anything he'd given off in his time. Whatever Vecna was using, whatever was in her, he was pretty sure he couldn't relate.
Besides, she very comfortably rebuffed any attempt at conversation.
When that was done, he felt significantly less achy, but he itched to get up and walk around. Sure, the Upside Down had been draining, but it also pumped you full of adrenaline that seemed to last for hours. He couldn't sleep now. He needed it. His body was howling for it, but since when had he ever done what was good for him?
So he ventured out into the halls. Some of the lights were on, but none near any windows. Low profile; no one could know they were all in here trying to save the world with a hose and some spears. Eddie meandered around, ducked in and out of the bathroom—no little boys' rooms in Vecnaland—and eventually wound up at the vending machines by the science lab, procuring a heavenly bag of Skittles.
He heard a sound nearby, somewhere around the corner. Like a soft thubump.
Instantly, his whole body was like a rat trap. It snapped into terror. Tight, suffocating terror. Suddenly the entire idea that they had been spending days in this building, when that gate was right downstairs, was ludicrous. If he and Chrissy could fall into the Upside Down from here, who was to say those monsters couldn't climb out? And he had zero tree branches with him this time.
Well, if he was going to go down, at least he was going to go down eating. Around the corner was the only way back to the gym. Where the Nancies with their guns were.
Eddie stopped chewing, stopped breathing, basically, and slowly poked the whites of his eyes around the wall.
His heartbeat slowed. There was nothing there. Just a big stupid empty hallway, a bunch of doors and trash cans and shoe marks. One of the windows in one of the doors was lit up. Eddie relaxed, curious, and approached the room.
It was the teachers' lounge. The door was unlocked. Eddie heard music playing inside, very quiet, but still asinine enough to seep through the wood:
"You know I've seen her in her uptown world,
She's getting tired of her high-class toys,
And all her presents from her uptown boys…"
Eddie popped another Skittle into his mouth, stepping inside. The teachers' lounge was all faded wallpaper and ragged blue carpet, foldout tables with coffee makers everywhere. A deck of cards on a little wooden desk, even an ashtray or two sitting around trying to be inconspicuous. Faint smell of doughnuts. Plush, green couches and chairs, all probably from the same store, were dotted here and there. He half expected to see the blood of student bodies past in jars somewhere on display, a shelf on the wall, maybe. His shoulder and leg hurt worse than ever, like they didn't love the air in this room. He sympathized.
Chrissy was curled on one of the sofas, her boom box perched on the edge of a low coffee table. She had a very thin blanket around her legs, head on the arm of the couch. He recognized the baby blue blanket from the nurse's gurneys, fleece and worth very little under the overpowering AC units if you were sick.
She looked like someone had sucked all the color right out of her. She wasn't trembling anymore, she was just lying there, prone, staring up at the ceiling.
Even totally burnt out, she looked great. Something about the flexible way her legs were tucked, or the roundness of her eyes, or how obvious her lashes were under those giant, flat white lights. Or maybe it was just because she'd changed clothes again. The wrecked blouse was gone, replaced with the same big white sweater she'd worn their first night of staking out the school. He assumed the jeans had been switched out too, though it was harder to tell with the crappy blanket.
It was such a stark contrast to the girl he'd seen an hour or so ago, standing with her feet splayed and dead bats all around her, broken bottle clutched in one hand. The vivid image came back every time he closed his eyes, like it was imprinted with the red lightning or something. It was the most metal thing he'd ever seen her do, bar none. Actually, he couldn't stop reliving it. Part of that was probably PTSD or whatever, and maybe he should see a shrink if they survived this ordeal, but the rest of it—the rest of it made his brain fizz. Like a head full of Pop Rocks. It became a lot harder not to just park his eyes on her and try to keep the Pop Rocks popping, even on the ride back.
Hormones were apparently tired of being upstaged by trauma.
And now she was just flopped there, on her back in the teachers' lounge, listening to Billy Joel and looking unfathomably uncomfortable. Like she hadn't taken out several demonic creatures in the span of six minutes with a tree branch and a will.
Eddie knocked with about three knuckles on the open door, wary of startling her.
She still jumped a little, jerking into a sitting position. The few strands of un-ponytailed hair went gingerly swinging to frame her face, which would've been cartoonish if she hadn't redone all of her makeup. At four in the morning. When had she had time? Had Wheeler taken her to do her makeup? And this while Eddie had been sitting there suffering at the hands of Red Riding Hood.
Chrissy softened when she saw him. "Hi." It came out on a short laughing breath.
Eddie shut the door and sat on the coffee table in front of her, cross-legged. It wobbled a bit beneath him. He saw his own aches and pains and nightmare watermarks reflected back at him when he met her gaze. Wordlessly, he offered her the opening to his bag of Skittles.
Chrissy didn't so much as look at it, shaking her head even before the bag had stopped moving.
"Wheeler put you on quarantine, or…?" Eddie asked, raising his eyebrows.
She glanced at her hands. "No, I—I guess she thought I'd feel better in here. After I…" She bounced a little in her seat, hands and fingers pinwheeling. "Upchucked." She pursed her lips, resigned to the shame, looking away.
He pulled a tight smile over the chewing of a few yellow candies, trying to make sure he swallowed before he spoke. Manners weren't something much minded in the Munson household. "Beats sleepin' on a mat, right?"
"I guess." She sat back on her hands, unfolding her legs so that she sat normally. "She should be back soon; she…said she was gonna—try to find Pepto-Bismol or something, I don't know."
Up close, Eddie could see the bruises around her neck looked less raw, less angry. He didn't know what Nancy had done to tone them down; they almost looked faded right off. Slightly orange, actually. And now that the blanket had shifted, Chrissy was indeed wearing different pants—these were darker blue. There were little denim flowers sewn into the ankles. Cute.
When he looked back up, eyes having darted around restlessly, Chrissy was watching him. Snap, crackle, pop went his brain. She smelled like flowers again. Tropical ones this time. Just like she had a few days ago, when he'd dropped her the Walkman. Her lipstick was kind of hibiscus-colored, too.
"You know—" Chrissy's mouth opened and shut, opened and shut. "You don't have to stay here anymore."
Eddie stopped mid-chew. His eyebrows lurched. "What do you mean?" he asked around the Skittles.
"We just crawled out of another dimension, like—" Chrissy let out a huff, like she was exasperated, like he was a younger sibling who was begging her to put down her nail polish and play. Her voice was throaty. Maybe prolonged exposure to the Upside Down gave you the insta-flu. "I-I mean, Vecna's not chasing you. I can't go home. I can't, but—you could."
Eddie had long since swallowed the Skittles. The bag was dormant in his hand.
"After all that?" Chrissy exhaled, letting it ride on a scoff of some kind. Eyes pinned to the arm of the couch. "I wouldn't blame you."
He let his eyebrows try to become a unibrow, setting the snack down off to the side. His legs unwound, shoes hitting the carpet, so that there wasn't room in between his knees and hers; he was too lanky. Tried to subdue the Pop Rocks. Where was this coming from? Did she seriously think he could go home?
Whether or not he wanted to was a different matter entirely. Obviously.
Yes, he wanted to leave. He wanted to go back to the trailer and make Wayne coffee and sit there and stare at a wall until the sun came up. He wanted to drink two six-packs without pausing for breath. He wanted to pretend absolutely nothing was going on in the basement of Hawkins High. Wash off the interdimensional sludge still clinging to his person.
But how could he?
"Hey—" he said, bobbing his leg so that his knee nudged hers a couple times. "Come on, don't gimme that. You're stuck with me, Your Majesty."
Chrissy's eyebrows matched his. The corners of her mouth twitched like she was thinking about smiling, but she couldn't find the energy.
"But…Eddie, if—if you're just—" She paused, inhaling frustratedly and pointing her face to the floor, pulling her legs back up underneath her. Resituating on the sofa. "You don't—have to stay just because of me."
Eddie raised his eyebrows. In the same moment, her head snapped back up and he watched her ears go pink.
"I mean—" Chrissy lifted a shoulder, mouth doing the open-shut thing again. Stammering.
Eddie heard himself grinning before he felt it, talking slow. "Chrissy Cunningham."
"I—no, I'm saying, like—"
His hands gripped the edges of the coffee table, torso leaning in. Enjoying this too much. He'd always sort of thrived when he was making people uncomfortable anyway. "You think I'm sticking around for your sake."
"No—" Chrissy put both hands over her face, wagging her head till her ponytail brushed both cheeks.
"Am I that easy?" Eddie kept grinning at her, letting out a scoff-laugh hybrid. "I'm losing my edge—"
"That's not it, I…" She dropped her hands, giving him a pinched, not unaffectionate glare. Her tone went firm. "I just mean, if you're staying because—because I'm targeted—you don't have to. It…it's kind of my fault you're even here, so." She spread her palms and let them flip over, slapping against her legs briefly. Head still twitching to focus on other corners of the room, all jumpy.
He got serious at that. "Your fault? Bullsh—"
"It's not," she said, swallowing. "It's not, I—if I hadn't gone home with you, if you weren't there when Vecna—" Another gulp. "When I—"
Milky eyes, cheer uniform, glued to his trailer's head. Another vivid imprint, way less welcome.
"I just wish…" She tucked a strand of hair behind an ear. "I-I don't know, I—I wish I'd made it somebody else's problem. That's all."
Eddie sat back, voice low and neutral. "Somebody else?"
"Yeah."
"Like Jason?"
"No!" Chrissy's eyes went wide, stretching to fill as much space as possible. "God, no, he'd—I mean, you heard what he's doing now. Nnn—no." She took another deep breath, sweater rising and falling and summoning the brain-popping. "I…I don't want to give you any more trouble, okay? I mea—bats tried to eat you!"
Eddie snorted one loud snort of laughter, pulling his uninjured leg up to scratch at his knee. Eyes flicking down and back at her again. She was fighting laughter too, trying so hard to be serious and get her point across. Whatever it was. The bats shouldn't have been funny—the bats might never be funny, ever, after this, but for some reason you couldn't say bats tried to eat you in her high, earnest voice and not choke. She was sitting up, kneeling on the couch, like a toddler on a too-big bed.
Chrissy's tone lowered, got soft, warm. "I guess I'm saying….You've been—really good to me, Eddie."
He met her gaze, the rings on his right hand tapping against the underside of the coffee table. No idea what to say. Pretty sure she wasn't done.
"And—if you wanted to get out, I…" She exhaled. Like she'd been holding her breath half the time. "I think you deserve it."
Eddie paused, half hunched, elbow slung over his knee. Ignoring the way he could feel his heartbeat going ballistic underneath the gauze over his palm, his ankle, his shoulder. I think you deserve it. Just because he'd wound up in the same vine-ridden hole she had? Or because he'd been there when Vecna had made his move? The only thing Eddie Munson deserved was a smack upside the head. All he'd done was run away. Or yell a lot. Or strike out in self-defense because if he hadn't, he'd be monster kibble. He hadn't done anything worthy of a break.
But Chrissy was looking at him with that movie-star stare again. He knew she wouldn't believe that if he said it out loud. Maybe he just looked good with a tree branch. Maybe she was still stuck on the whole knocking-Wayne's-stereo-over thing, plastering a big red S on his chest in her head.
And his head wasn't doing him any favors. Especially if she was going to keep watching him like that. Did she even know she was doing it? It was so open and full. He felt like he was sitting in a sunbeam.
"No way," he said, leaning forward. "I did not have bats try to eat me—" she started chortling as he mimicked her tone from earlier, and he spoke louder to counter the mirth, "—just to go crawling back to Munson Castle with my tail between my legs, now, we gotta finish what we started, right? Right?"
Chrissy let the rest of the chortle out through her nose, humming her consent.
"C'mon, you and me." Eddie snatched up the bag of Skittles, offering it for a second time. "Monster hunters."
Chrissy eyed the bag, like he was holding out a live mouse or something. Her whole body went kind of still. Then the movie-star gaze came back in a big way, bouncing from him to the candy. She reached in with one hand and allotted herself a single red Skittle.
Eddie tossed back a handful of his own, sharing grins with her. There was something stirring in his chest, mingling with the fizzing in his brain. It was happening mostly when she laughed. Hormones were chomping at the bit to be back in the fray, and Eddie discovered he was too lenient with them. Maybe it was the little Upside Down episode; he was losing some self-control in an effort to relax. He hadn't felt the Pop Rocks in a long time. He'd almost forgotten he had Pop Rocks up there. Now they were jumping around, jumping at Chrissy's messy hair and her teeth and the fact that she was not big enough to take up the whole sofa even when she'd been stretched out.
"Hey," Chrissy said, swiping a mental butter knife through his turmoil. "That stuff I said—when we were in there—" Her smile was fading, light tone dying out.
He looked between both blue eyes, confused. Frantically trying to remember the stuff she was referring to.
"About…everything at home. And—about my life?"
Oh. Gears started turning again. He raised his free palm, waving a bit. "Woah, hey, look, I'm—I shouldn't've said anything—"
"No, it's okay," she said. "You were right. I mean—I know I don't—really have it all that bad, I just…"
When she didn't continue for a few seconds, Eddie ducked his head, trying to catch her eye. "Hey, I'll…burn the Munson Doctrine, all right?" He tried for a halfhearted chortle, but she didn't go for it. Back to serious. "If you say life sucks, man, life sucks. Okay? Who am I to argue with the Queen?"
That didn't help. Chrissy looked up at him, her face a total maze of emotions. It was like she was a scratched record, turning like she was supposed to but not finding the right noises to be normal again. How many times was he going to eat his foot? And how many times was she going to let him before she snapped her fingers and had him publicly beheaded and banished from her presence? …Metaphorically.
"You know what that means, right?" Chrissy demanded, voice a little duller. "Being the Queen? It's like—everything I do, everybody's always watching. They're just—always there. My friends. The squad, Jason. My mom." She glanced at her hands, at the Skittles bag, her knees.
Eddie was done eating feet. He sat, silent, just listening. She shoved her hair back again, evidently got tired of doing that, and started putting it up into a second ponytail. A stronger one. Pop-pop-pop.
"I told you—it—they want perfect. I have to get perfect grades, and—have the perfect schedule, and clothes, and—like, if I don't, I let everybody down. If I—if I don't have good grades, I can't be on the squad, that's—then I let them down. It lets Jason down, and then it lets Mom down, and—"
Chrissy gave up, letting out a long growly sound. She let go of her hair and snapped her scrunchie back onto her wrist. Strawberry blonde, muddy and vibrant, went flumping down onto her shoulders. Crackle, snap.
"That's why I'm the Queen of Hawkins High," she added, voice deepening in a silly undertone when she pronounced her title. Doing some jazz hands to complete the effect. "Because everything is perfect."
Then she stopped, deliberate, and looked to the left. Eddie followed her gaze to her boom box.
"Uptown girl,
You know I can't afford to buy her pearls,
But maybe someday when my ship comes in…"
The pause in conversation made the music seem that much louder. She didn't have to say anything else. Joel was saying it for her. The very fact that Vecna had come after her was saying it for her.
"Know what?" Eddie turned back to Chrissy, tossing the Skittles down behind him on the coffee table. He lifted his chin at her. "Screw perfect."
Chrissy blinked. "Screw perfect," she repeated, quiet. Like she was testing it out. She smiled, but it was a closed smile. A tired smile. "Just—please don't tell anyone about this. Okay?"
Eddie clapped a hand to his mouth. "Your wish is my command, Highness," he promised through his fingers.
She paused, then went ahead and giggled anyway. That chest-stirring feeling moved with her laugh like it was a drumbeat. One lousy Upside Down expedition and he had to break out the ol' leash and collar. He was losing his edge.
"I'm supposed to be resting," Chrissy admitted, pulling the little blanket back up primly over her legs.
"Says who?"
"Nancy." Chrissy sighed, drifting back into her original position, head facing the ceiling.
"Yeah." Eddie dug around in the bag behind him, threw a Skittle in the air, and caught it expertly in his mouth on the first try. "Scary scary Wheeler."
"You're a distraction," Chrissy announced teasingly, pointing at him.
He straightened, clutching the candy tight in one hand till the bag was warm. An orange, blue, and purple were still rolling around against one cheek. She'd been watching. She saw him catch the Skittle. "Want me to go?" He jabbed a thumb toward the door.
"You don't have to," she said, fingers fiddling with each other across her chest. Eyes downcast.
He waited for a more concrete decision. None came. And he wouldn't want to incur the wrath of Nancy. Eddie shrugged, standing. Best to get out now, before the sun came up. Before Wheeler came back. Before the Pop Rocks exploded the only part of his brain he had left that could concentrate on real things. Like the nightmare he'd just been through, or the nightmares still to come, when they went back. Back through the gate to try and stop Vecna.
It wasn't like this was an unwanted diversion.
He had almost made it to the door when Chrissy stopped him, saying his name. He turned slightly.
She was looking at him, but just barely. "Actually…"
Eddie faced her fully, tapping his thumb against the Skittles. Full of move-move-move again. Wide awake.
"Would you…" Chrissy rolled over, back to lying on her back, clearing her throat. "I don't know when Nancy's coming back, and—I—I don't want to be alone."
It made perfect sense. She was supposed to be resting. Wheeler's orders. But she wouldn't be able to sleep any more than he could. Definitely not on her own. Not after the bats—the demodog—the vines—the everything in the last twelve hours. Eddie actually couldn't imagine sleeping ever again, no matter how tired he was. No matter how many cuts and scrapes and bruises he got, or where they came from. He could hardly imagine sitting down, now that he was up again.
Chrissy turned her head to see his reaction. He was standing there like an idiot. Her eyes were stupid big, and stupid blue, and pleading. And really embarrassed. She didn't keep them on him for more than few seconds, hand fiddling with the edge of the fleece blanket. But what little time those eyes did spend on him left their mark. Sunbeams and movie stars.
Eddie was sitting beside her in the next few seconds, hiking his feet up on the coffee table. Chrissy was so small, she seemed to only take up one of the three cushions. He sat on the other end of the sofa, acutely aware of how close her feet were. The last time he'd sat up with somebody like this, Wayne had had a fever of 99 and refused to take it lying down. Literally. Eddie had had to force his uncle into bed with every inch of man muscle he possessed.
This was very different. This would be the second time Chrissy fell asleep near him, and she must have remembered that, too, or else she probably wouldn't have asked. She wasn't sick, she was scared. And she was no Wayne. She smelled like flowers and her hair was tangled and she just rolled onto her side, curled into the fetal position. Like every move she made wasn't activating the snapping and popping.
After a few minutes of Uptown Girl and the sky outside the one window getting bluer and bluer, Eddie forced himself to stop bouncing his leg. And stop thinking about hibiscus. He fished out his lighter and cigarettes, preparing to sit still the only way he knew how—high as a kite.
Just as he was lifting the lighter to the tube between his teeth, Chrissy mumbled, "Eddie?"
He swung his head over to look at her, flame in midair. Her head lifted an inch or two.
"Just making sure you were here."
"Yeah." Eddie plucked the cigarette out of his mouth. "Yeah, I'm here."
She didn't answer. He couldn't see her face, but he could see her side under the blanket. It rose and fell, rose and fell. She was sleeping. Maybe it was a catnap, maybe it was light, but she was obeying Wheeler. She was resting. If the boys in Hellfire knew he had this kind of effect on the bedridden, he'd have to hand in his horns.
The list of things that would make him hand in his horns was getting longer every day, he realized with some discomfort.
Eddie let himself watch Chrissy a little longer, lighting the cigarette. How could the girl who flinched when the fire alarm went off during school drills be the same girl who'd stabbed a demon bat with a glass bottle? To save him? How could the girl who had closed the window on a roaring demodog be the one snoring just inches from his hip, totally vulnerable and looking cozier than her sweater?
He wasn't going to forget it in a hurry. Seeing her like that—in the middle of red lightning and chaos, worried about the branch-scratch on his cheek—it was indelible. He could've had it tattooed with his eyes shut, just from memory.
But he could've said the same about her smile when she'd said he'd been really good to her. When she'd said she didn't want to cause him any more trouble, that he'd been through enough. That she'd rather he leave now than go through anything else just because she'd dared to try and buy drugs from him right before Spring Break.
Pop-pop-pop-pop.
When Nancy came back to the door of the teachers' lounge, Pepto-Bismol in hand and a fresh conversation with Steve on repeat in her head, she stopped at the handle. Through the door's window, she could see Chrissy, fast asleep on the sofa. Right where she'd left her.
Beside Chrissy, gangly and frizzy and looking totally at home, Eddie was smoking. The boom box was playing, the wild, frightened hunch in Chrissy's frame had gone, and smoke was fogging up the window. And Eddie's big brown eyes were locked on the cheerleader. Big, brown, soft.
Nancy set the Pepto-Bismol on the floor outside the door and quietly crept back to the gym.