Content Warning: Discussion of Chrissy's ED in this chapter.

Your smile…

Hawkins, March 27, 1986

"We're going to the police."

That one sentence rocked Eddie's world more than anything else that had yet happened to him.

"Chris, why the fuck would we do that?" It wasn't the plan. Far from, actually. Eddie and Chrissy were under strict orders from one Nancy Wheeler to stay put.

Leaving Benny's to go to Hawkins PD was not staying put.

"Because we're going to tell the police that you have nothing to do with the murders and, on top of that, you didn't kidnap me? I'm eighteen, Eddie. I don't have to go home if I don't want to. We'll tell them I ran away of my own accord, which... really isn't a lie, is it?" Her words had started as a firm declaration but had progressively faltered until they hardly carried any weight. "I really ran away from home."

She took a deep breath, her shoulders shuddering with it. Eddie tried to tamp down the unfair flare of annoyance as Chrissy teetered on the edge of another panic attack. But she took three more of those shuddering breaths and then shook her head and squared her shoulders. "We're going. Come on."

You're a dick, he told himself. A hypocrite dick. Getting mad at her for something she can't control after being pissed at Harrington for doing the same thing. Eddie was so caught up in scolding himself that he belatedly realized he had stood to follow Chrissy.

"Wait," he said, reaching out to grab her hand. "What's going to the police going to achieve?"

"It will take something off our plates." She only paused for a moment, tugging at his hand to lead him forward. "Don't you think it will be easier to deal with Vecna if we don't have to worry about dodging the police, too?"

"The department is across town," Eddie pointed out. "And besides that, we were already dodging the cops. Before Jason ever opened his stupid ass mouth."

Chrissy glared at him. There was nothing she could say to that; he was undeniably right. "What's different now, Chris?"

"You weren't wrongly accused of murder before?" They had reached the tree line when Eddie dug his feet into the dirt, forcing Chrissy to stop as well.

"That's what's bothering you here? Really?"

"Yes! It's not fair to you, Eddie. You're not a murderer and it's beyond ridiculous for Jason to throw your name in just because he's mad I broke up with him!"

Eddie couldn't help it. He laughed in her face before he could stop himself. "Do you think that's the only thing he told them? He can't prove I have anything to do with the murders, but one little ransack through the trailer would turn up enough evidence that I deal drugs."

All the color leached from Chrissy's cheeks. "You think he would?"

"He's a self-serving prick who already falsely accused me of murder. Yeah, Chrissy, I think he would. It's not going to matter if they can't pull anything together to connect me to the murders or if they believe you ran off with me on your own."

"They would believe me," Chrissy said, but even she sounded like she hardly believed it.

"Even if they do, Chris, they've got me. Easily. And I'm not gonna be much help to our ragtag group of world saving misfits in the clink. So no police, okay? Not that I don't appreciate the sentiment. Let's just not make this situation any stickier than it already is."

The fight had duly gone out of her by then. Silently, Chrissy let herself be led back to Benny's Burgers. After depositing her back on the love seat they had shared earlier, Eddie stuck his hand into his pocket and fished out the loose change swimming in there. The coins clattered on the plastic folding table that took up the center of the room. He counted them and quickly realized there wouldn't be enough.

"What are you doing?" Chrissy asked, voice still soft, as Eddie began rifling through the couch cushions.

"I don't wanna talk to the police, but I do wanna talk to my uncle. Wayne doesn't need to be worrying about me." Eddie came up triumphant from the cushions, adding three quarters and four dimes to his small pile of change. "Thought you might want to touch base with home, too. There's a payphone out back. I'll bet it still works even if this joint doesn't have electricity anymore."

Once he found sufficient change for the both of them, Eddie took his portion and slipped out the back door. Each coin made a metallic clang as he pushed them through the slot, the sound nearly deafening in the silence. Benny's always had been an out of the way spot. Now that the restaurant sat empty, so did the road.

Wayne answered on the third ring. "Hello?"

"Hey, Wayne, it's me. Uh, Eddie. Listen, I don't know if the cops have talked to you, but—"

"I told them to stuff the idea that you might be involved in those kids dying up their asses." His uncle's words made Eddie smile despite himself. They both knew damn well that Wayne didn't make a habit of talking as profane as his nephew did. "I do have to ask, though, Eds. What the hell have you gotten yourself turned up in with this Cunningham girl?"

"I'm just helping a friend," he explained, hoping his voice sounded reassuring. "She, uh... she just doesn't have the best home life. And she needed out for a bit."

The other end of the line was quiet while Wayne considered his words. "Cops told me she's real pretty. Don't see how that factors into their investigation, but I guess they thought it was worth mentioning."

"I'm not helping her because she's pretty, Wayne. I'm helping her because she needs it."

"Hmmph," Wayne grumbled. "My nephew, the saint. Just keep me in the loop, alright? Let me know you're being safe, Eds. And try to give me more warning next time the police are looking for you. Half your product ended up down the toilet."

"And the other half?" Eddie asked, rubbing a hand down his face. Good thing Rick was in prison himself; Eddie had no idea how he was going to make up the difference of what he would owe in lost product.

"Safe in your room, for now. They couldn't search the trailer. Not enough evidence for a warrant."

"Thank God," Eddie said, meaning it. "Listen, I gotta go. But I am safe—we're both safe—and I love you, Wayne. I'll call again tomorrow if it looks like I won't be home yet."

"I love you, too. Try not to make extra trouble for yourself for once, alright?"

"I'm doing my best not to. Promise."

The last thing Chrissy wanted to do was make a phone call home, but if Eddie wouldn't let her go to the police department, maybe letting her parents know she was fine would help soothe the situation some. She dropped two of the dimes Eddie had given her when she tried to make them into the slot. Cursing her shaking hands, Chrissy quickly retrieved them. By the time she was dialing, her teeth were chattering from the nerves.

Half a ring and her mother's voice was drifting over the line and into her ear. "Hello? Hello?"

"Mom," Chrissy forced herself to say. That was all she managed to get through her lips, though, lest she choke on the bile rising in her throat.

"Chrissy!" Perhaps her ears were biased, but Chrissy didn't hear any concern in the syllables of her name. Only that sharp anger that her mother did so well. She wished desperately that Dad had answered the phone, or even Caleb. "Do you have any idea what's being said? What's going on in this town? Jason told us you broke up with him because of that Munson boy, that he's a Satanist and—"

"Jason's a liar, I ran away on my own. I'm safe and I'll be back when I'm ready." The words came out all a-tumble and probably didn't lend much credit to her assertion. Chrissy couldn't find it in her to care. She slammed the payphone onto its receiver and promptly fell to her knees.

Nothing but stomach bile splattered into the grass. Chrissy wiped her mouth on her sweater sleeve, her fingers on her sleeves, and rocked back. She tried to take the slow, deep breaths that Eddie had shown her but each one wracked through her chest as a sob. Still, she forced herself to breathe until she was able to do it correctly, until the tears stopped streaming down her face. Only then did she push herself up and retreat into the relative safety of Benny's Burgers.

She found Eddie sitting in the party common area that the group had occupied before most of them had disbanded. It had been Nancy's idea, of course, to procure weapons before facing Vecna again as they planned. Eddie had told them of the gun emporium; Steve had insisted that Eddie and Chrissy stay back, hidden, lest they draw more unneeded attention to the group.

"What're you doing?" Chrissy asked, coming to stand behind the couch Eddie sat on. He had something small and circular in his hand. When he opened the little device, the cloying, earthy-sweet scent of marijuana wafted up to her.

"I sold it to them. Figured that means it's still mine to use." She watched, over his shoulder, as Eddie deposited the ground marijuana into a little glass pipe. Jason and the other basketball players smoked from time to time, she knew, but the fact that they were cocky enough to let Benny's be known as their party spot and leave the weed there? It left her shaking her head at their idiocy.

Eddie didn't turn to her until the pipe was packed and ready, a smile brightening the dark bruise on his face. That smile swiftly fell when he noticed the tear tracks on Chrissy's cheeks. "Oh, shit, Chris." He scooted over on the couch, patting the space beside him. "Phone call didn't go so good?"

"You could say." A numbness had overtaken Chrissy. She didn't object when Eddie lit the pipe and offered it to her, coaching her through how to use it. The weed soothed some of that numbness, letting her shoulders relax as she settled into the couch beside him. A small part of her mind noted that it might not be the best idea to be getting high at the moment, but a much larger part of her welcomed the weightlessness of the drug.

It wasn't lost on Chrissy that he let her smoke the majority of the bowl.

"Can I tell you something?" She asked, letting her head loll onto Eddie's leather-covered shoulder. "Why Vecna ch-chose me?"

Eddie shifted, wrapping his arm around her so that she was tucked to his side. "Only if you want to," he assured her. "You don't have to."

"I want to." Chrissy took a deep breath, nodding to herself. "I need to. I… Ms. Kelly, the counselor at school? She… she knows this, so I-I'm not, like… unattended. She helps as much as she can, b-but…"

Gulping down her fears, Chrissy backtracked. This part, the beginning, she could tell easily. She and Ms. Kelly had talked about it often over the years she had been seeing the high school counselor. "When I was a freshman, my mom started… controlling… my food. She wanted me to be a flyer—the person they throw in the air for cheer stunts—and captain. Both of those things happened, um, but… controlling my food turned into skipping meals. And skipping meals turned into eating too much, in her opinion, when I did eat. And, and then, I started purging."

"Purging?" Eddie asked quietly, gently.

"I, um, make myself throw up sometimes, after eating. B-but, it's… more than that, now. Sometimes I throw up when I'm scared, or too anxious. You've seen that. It just happens sometimes, or it started to, after Vecna. But sometimes, when I'm feeling that way, I-I make myself. Ms. Kelly says it's the, um, endorphins. That my brain wants that, in those moments, that, that high after a purge."

That was all Chrissy could get out. Confessing felt like a purge in and of itself. Maybe that was the weed, but she felt the same weightlessness that followed, only this time it didn't quickly fade into regret. She did grow nervous, though, as Eddie remained quiet and still beside her. Peeking up at him, Chrissy found Eddie staring straight ahead, his jaw tight. "Eddie?"

"Chrissy, can I say something without you getting mad?" He waited for her nod before continuing, "Your mom's a fucking bitch. And I can't wait to end Vecna's creepy tentacle ass."

To both of their surprise, Chrissy let out a shaky, relieved laugh. "You don't think I'm…?"

"A freak?" He asked, a teasing grin coming to his lips despite the fact his eyes were still hard with anger. "Nah, Chris, I don't. What I do think is that you need a nap. Your dark circles look worse than my black eye. C'mere."

He coaxed her into laying her head in his lap, and Chrissy let him. His black denim jeans were stiff under her cheek, but she didn't mind. Eddie stroked her hair so gently that it made her want to cry anew. Luckily for Eddie's jeans, her exhaustion won out now that she had the opportunity to rest.

Likewise, Eddie fell asleep sitting up, his hand still resting protectively on her head. That was how their friends found them a handful of hours later. Robin took more joy than necessary in waking the pair, teasing them all through the afternoon the group of teenagers spent in a field just outside of Hawkins, crafting homemade weapons to wield against their otherworldly foes.

Chrissy and Dustin were safe.

That was the only thought that Eddie managed to form as he watched the bats fly toward him. Their part of the plan had worked: Eddie and Dustin had managed to draw the bats away from the others using Eddie's guitar, amp, and an immaculate—if he did say himself—rendition of Master of Puppets.

The trouble had started when the boys had retreated into the Munson trailer. Though Chrissy had played her part perfectly, barring the door the moment Eddie and Dustin came through and all the windows already blocked in anticipation, Eddie had overlooked one thing: the spot in Wayne's bedroom ceiling where water damage had caused it to fall through. The hole had been patched over two years past, but that didn't matter in the Upside Down. It had formed in 1983, the year that the Upside Down was frozen in while Hawkins continued on above it.

Bats had streamed through that hole and out of the open bedroom door before any of the three teenagers could do anything to stop it.

They were still in their celebratory group hug when Chrissy screamed. The forerunner of the bats had latched onto her leg, tearing through the denim of her jeans and the flesh of her thigh alike.

"Get it off!" She screamed, slapping hopelessly at the creature. Dustin grabbed the bat with his bare hand, slamming its head on the counter.

Bats flew quickly into the living room after that. Quite a few ended up splattered against the walls and floor, but all too easily, the bats outnumbered and overwhelmed the three of them.

"Take Dustin to my room!" Eddie shouted, raising his spiked shield to keep a barrage of bats from colliding with his face. He didn't give Chrissy nor Dustin a chance to argue, pushing both of them behind him and backing up, forcing them down the hallway. The stupid demobats made the most awful squishing sound when they collided with the nails that had been hammered into the shield.

Eddie, his shield, and his spear were all that stood between the bats and two of the people he cared about most. His plan was to corner them into his room whether they liked it or not, and he managed to do just that by shouldering them both into the room and quickly closing the door on their protests. With his back to the door, he continued to fight off the bats as best he could.

But if three had been terrible odds, then one was suicide.

Lucky for Eddie Munson, neither of the people he was trying to protect were much ones for taking orders. Just as several bats managed to latch themselves all over his body, Chrissy opened the door behind him. He fell backwards into her arms, her hands gripping at his shirt as she dragged him into the room. Dustin was at the ready, slamming the door and effectively stopping an entire wave of bats before pushing Eddie's dresser into place over the door.

That didn't change the fact that at least ten bats were currently doing their best to gnaw through his flesh and muscle.

"We gotta get them off!" Dustin yelled, already grabbing bats by their overlong tails and slamming them against the sharp corner of the dressed. Chrissy took the spear from his hand, skewering bats and scraping them off with her foot with record speed. On the other side of the door, the bats wailed and keened and threw themselves at the wall in futile attempts of reaching them. "Oh, fuck, he's bleeding a lot, Chrissy."

"No shit," Chrissy snapped back at the boy, making Eddie laugh. He immediately regretted it. All the open wounds littering his torso courtesy of the demobats burned in protest. There were hands fluttering all around him, both Dustin and Chrissy struggling to decide what to do. "We need to get back to Hawkins."

Dustin promptly went to the dresser, pushing it back out of the way of the door. While he did that, Chrissy knelt beside Eddie, one hand gently touching his cheek. "You're gonna be okay. Okay? We're gonna get you out of here."

"Okay," Eddie agreed, even though breathing hurt, and he could feel his pulse in each and every one of the demobat bites he had. He tried to focus on the feel of Chrissy's hand on his face, her palm warm even as he began to feel chilled.

The Forest Gate, where Sarah Thompson perished, was just behind the girl's trailer. To leave the Munson trailer was to open themselves to potential exposure to more bats. They hardly had a choice, though; the Forest Gate was the closest gate to them and they had lost their radio in the haste of getting inside following Eddie's guitar solo.

Though his entire body hurt to do so, Eddie forced himself to sit up. Neither Dustin nor Chrissy were big enough to carry him on their own. "Hope you guys are up for dragging my ass."

Dustin and Chrissy each took one of his arms, throwing it over their own shoulders, and standing with Eddie's weight balanced precariously between them. There were no longer any screeching or thumping on the other side of the door; all the demobats in the trailer had done them a favor by offing themselves. They paused at the front window, peeking outside at a world cloaked in red. Lightning flashed and thunder roiled more than ever.

Eddie hoped it was because the others were getting closer to destroying Vecna.

"Okay," Dustin said once it was clear the sky was largely devoid of demobats, "what we're going to do is run to the Forest Gate. Chrissy'll go through first, then I'll help Eddie. Then we'll book it back to Eddie's trailer in Hawkins and take his van. You got the keys, Ed?"

"Pocket," he answered, unable to find it in him to give a full response. Under different circumstances, Eddie would have been thrilled to have Chrissy's hand in the pocket of his jeans. Currently he was trying not to groan for an entirely different reason: the pain of the denim rubbing on his wounds.

It was a mad dash to the Forest Gate that left Eddie sweating even though he was hardly doing any of the work in getting there. He thought he might pass out when Dustin sent him through the gate after Chrissy.

"Dustin, hurry," Chrissy urged him, cradling Eddie's head in her lap while they waited. "I think there's an earthquake happening."

He could feel the tremors under his back. The night sky in Hawkins was full of stars, each pinpoint shaking in the endless expanse of black. When Dustin came through, they lifted him again, dragging him to his van parked outside his true trailer, just as they planned. Eddie thought they could have been a little gentler as they hauled him into the backseat, but given current events, he decided to forgive them.

"Not letting Henderson drive," Eddie managed when his head came to rest in Chrissy's lap once more.

"I'm not leaving you," Chrissy responded. Her hand was stroking his hair, just as he had done for her that afternoon. God, how Eddie wished they were back on that couch at Benny's Burgers. He looked up at her, face pale and nervous and… fuzzy. Things were going fuzzy. All the bat bites didn't hurt so much anymore, and he was colder, Chrissy's body temperature practically burning in comparison. "No no no no no, you don't do that, Eddie. Stay awake, stay with me."

His eyelids had started to drift shut but he worked them open again at Chrissy's urging. Tried to smile at her, only to cough instead, painfully turning his head to spit into the floorboard. Chrissy's hand was cupping his cheek again, guiding his face upward once more.

There was blood in his mouth the first time he kissed Chrissy.

Or, rather, the first time Chrissy kissed him. But the specifics didn't matter much in the moment. What mattered was that she was burning hot and for just a moment, he could taste something other than metal. "Stay with me," she told him again, his blood staining her lips, her forehead pressed to his.

"'Kay." His smile was more successful this time, if only for a moment. "I'll stay."

"You better," she told, pushing his hair back to kiss him on the forehead. "Dustin, you need to fucking floor it."

"I just want you to know," Dustin called back to them, "that carting an injured guy to the hospital while he makes out with the head cheerleader of your high school during a fucking earthquake is the worst driver's ed ever."

Both Eddie and Chrissy ignored the tears that were obvious in Dustin's voice. He sped up, though, weaving around cars with the focus and determination of a racecar driver.

The line "There was blood in his mouth the first time he kissed Chrissy" was what inspired this entire story.